The Trump administration announced measures to adjust the Permanent Worker Certification Program (PERM). This program allows companies to sponsor foreign workers holding H-1B and other visas who are already working in the U.S., helping them obtain legal permanent resident status. Given the importance of H-1B visas to the U.S. IT outsourcing industry, this policy change may have some impact on India and Indian IT companies; however, it should be noted that the reliance of these companies on H-1B visas has generally decreased in recent years. Furthermore, according to the Financial Times, OpenAI's current annualized revenue is about $20 billion lower than the company's previously released expectations, which may partly explain the recent weakening of investor sentiment in semiconductor stocks.
Overall, the Asian macroeconomy has so far shown strong resilience.
Taiwan's exports in September increased sharply by 61% year-on-year, and South Korea's current account surplus remains high, equivalent to about 20% of GDP at an annualized rate. Our baseline forecast is that export growth will slow moderately in the future, but given the current high level of economic activity, we expect the trend of artificial intelligence investment to continue until 2027, or even longer.
