☕️ Good morning, friends,

This newsletter is also about building bridges between East and West.

So here’s a little nugget for today’s watercooler talk: the U.S. and China have more in common than you’d think — they’re neighbors in the global ranking for countries with the best work-life balance.

🇺🇸 U.S. at No. 59
🇨🇳 China at No. 53

Germany comes in at No. 4! Yeah, we still matter!

P.S. Business idea of the week: selling spicy Chongqing noodles as street food in Belgium — and pulling in 40k USD a month.

MARKETS

Highlights

🇯🇵 Nikkei closes above 45,000 for the first time, rising 1.15% to 45,303.43. During the session, the index even hit a record high of 45,508.67. Chip stocks drove the rally — Resonac +11.7%, Advantest and Tokyo Electron +5% each.

Focus now shifts to the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting, where investors are looking for signals on the timing of future rate hikes.

TOP BIT

⚙️ Huawei lays out AI roadmap through 2028

At its in-house expo in Shanghai, Huawei unveiled an ambitious roadmap: between 2026 and 2028, the company plans to roll out new AI chips and massive compute clusters. The goal is to challenge Nvidia’s dominance and prove that China can deliver world-class performance even under sanctions.

“Computing power is and will remain the key to AI. Especially for China,” said rotating chairman Xu Zhijun.

The Details

📅 Three years, four chips: Between 2026 and 2028, Huawei will launch the …