China’s tech giants have all rushed to place large orders for Nvidia chips optimized for machine learning (ML) amid a flurry of activity in the AI-related semiconductor area. In another key development, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry, has elaborated on plans to build a new semiconductor factory in Germany, after receiving the go-ahead to lead a joint venture both from its board and the country’s government. That TSMC factory is likely to build advanced 3nm process AI chips designed for the automotive sector, making Germany an appropriate location. China’s spate of Nvidia orders appears to have come from Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance, according to reports in the UK’s Financial Times, although with no response to requests…