Michael Kung, a senior partner at the US research and advisory firm Gartner Inc, told reporters at a press conference in Taiwan yesterday hyper-automation tops the list of 10 most important strategic technology trends for next year. The ultimate goal of hyperautomation is to automate anything that can be automated, everything from single tasks to …

COTD:  Chart of the Day Maybe a bit dated but you get the picture.   No surprise, China dominates, which also includes fabs.

We are fairly certain China trade talks are hung up on a rollback (China wants) of some of the tariffs and the bigger issues of structural changes to China’s economy and IP protection (U.S. wants).    Trump looks weak if he rolls back tariffs without getting anything big and not just a commitment by China …