China's regulatory body for business, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMD), has announced an antitrust investigation is now under, looking into the purchase of Israeli connected-vehicle technology company, Autotalks, by Qualcomm earlier this year, according to Bloomberg. With the deal now months old and having cleared all regulatory approval in the U.S., this move is largely seen as a punitive measure towards America as part of the ongoing trade negotiations and ahead of the proposed meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping at the end of October.
U.S. and Chinese trade relations have been volatile throughout much of 2025. On-again, off-again tariffs and blocks on key materials like GPUs and rare earth minerals have soured relations and led to worsening trade conditions between the two countries. There's been a lot of posturing to go with the economic maneuvering, and as part of that, China has initiated several investigations into U.S. companies. It began with an antitrust investigation into Nvidia's purchase of networking hardware company, Mellanox, earlier this year. Now it's opening an investigation into another US company, and a key technology venture, Qualcomm.
