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South Korea's export surge is entering a new phase, with artificial intelligence-driven semiconductor demand powering record shipments even as geopolitical risks and cost pressures mount....

OpenAI's aggressive push to secure AI computing capacity is facing growing scrutiny, with signs that its multibillion-dollar data center procurement plans may be reassessed, reportedly raising questions for a supply chain led by Quanta Computer, Wistron and Foxconn....

Prices for high-end AI servers in China are diverging sharply from global benchmarks, with systems built around Nvidia's B300 chips now fetching scarcity-driven premiums that reflect tightening export controls and surging domestic demand....

Japan's Advantest closed its fiscal year with strong results, highlighting how AI-driven chip demand is reshaping semiconductor testing economics, even as a cautious outlook weighed on sentiment....

KLA Corporation's fiscal 3Q26 results underscore a familiar pattern in the current semiconductor cycle: strong execution tied to AI infrastructure demand, but investor expectations are rising even faster....

Samsung Electronics is facing its largest labor escalation in years after unions representing tens of thousands of workers voted to authorize strike action. The dispute centers on compensation structures, particularly performance-based bonuses linked to semiconductor profits, which workers argue have become increasingly opaque and insufficient relative to the company's record earnings in the AI-driven chip cycle....

Memory maker Macronix (MXIC) is emerging from an operational slump in the first quarter of 2026, driven by explosive revenue growth in embedded multi-media cards (eMMCs) as major global players exit the multi-level cell (MLC) NAND segment. The company reported a quarterly increase of 94% and an annual surge of 3,993% in eMMC sales....

Competition in humanoid robotics has intensified in recent years, with advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning often cited as the main drivers of progress. However, attention is increasingly turning to hardware limitations—particularly actuators used in robotic hands and arms—which some industry participants argue remain the key barrier to achieving human-level dexterity and commercial viability....

The deployment density of service and mobile robots in commercial environments has surged over the past three years. What began as narrowly defined automation—inspection units in factories or delivery bots in controlled settings—has expanded into restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, warehouses, and even outdoor logistics. Yet despite this rapid proliferation, most of these machines still operate on rigid rules and pre-programmed workflows, closer to moving appliances than adaptive systems....

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is considering raising prices for multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) by about 5% to 10% as demand from artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure tightens supply, according to Korean media reports and industry sources....

China's National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has launched the LineShine supercomputer project, aiming to break into the exascale tier with a CPU-only architecture that excludes both GPU accelerators and foreign components, challenging the current global trajectory of supercomputing design....

SanDisk's fiscal 3Q26 results point to a decisive shift in the NAND industry, with AI-driven data center demand lifting both performance and pricing, while new long-term supply agreements begin to reshape the sector's historically cyclical model....

Apple Inc. beat Wall Street expectations in its fiscal second quarter, with strong iPhone demand, resilient Services growth and a rebound in China driving a broad-based earnings outperformance....

Apple's fiscal second-quarter earnings call was less about the beat and more about positioning the next phase of leadership. The message was controlled and deliberate: demand is strong, constraints are external, and incoming CEO John Ternus represents continuity with sharper hardware and AI execution....

The Beijing Humanoid Robot Half Marathon has concluded, but its outcome has ignited a wider industry debate. Rather than a leading robotics specialist, smartphone maker Honor emerged as the unexpected winner — raising questions over whether the company's success reflects genuine technological strength or exposes lower-than-expected barriers in the humanoid robotics sector....

Google has unveiled its eighth-generation Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) by splitting them into two distinct chips: the training-focused TPU 8t and the inference-optimized TPU 8i. This move goes beyond simply designing two chips; it reflects Google's capability to break down bottlenecks across different stages of the model lifecycle, restructuring chip design, interconnects, memory, scheduling, and software stacks....

As Taiwan's energy transition enters a critical phase, the stability of power supply and the quality of renewable energy infrastructure have become key industry concerns. While numerous solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) providers operate in the market, only a handful offer fully integrated capabilities. Hengs Technology stands out for its comprehensive approach, extending beyond solar EPC to include AI-driven data management, as well as expansion into energy storage EPC and EV charging infrastructure. Chairman Heng-Hao Chou stated that Hengs currently holds more than NT$7.6 billion (US$239.6 million) in orders, which are expected to be gradually recognized as revenue over the next two to three years. The company has set clear targets for 2026, aiming to deploy more than 100MW of solar capacity during the year....

AGI, Inc., also known as The AGI Company, is a San Francisco–based applied AI startup developing what it describes as "on-device superintelligence" for smartphones, computers and browsers. In the emerging agentic AI era, the company focuses on systems that go beyond generating responses and instead execute real-world tasks on behalf of users....

Memory packaging and testing provider Powertech Technology posted net profit of NT$1.84 billion (US$57 million) for the first quarter of 2026, its second-highest for the same period, and raised its full-year outlook. The company increased its planned 2026 capital expenditure from NT$40 billion to NT$50 billion and expects broad price increases for logic and memory products in the second quarter of 2026, supporting sequential revenue gains and high single-digit to low double-digit annual growth....

Coretronic Intelligent Robotics Corp. (CIRC), a subsidiary of Coretronic Corp., has long attracted attention for its drone business. Although the company is facing delays with Taiwan's largest-ever drone procurement project, other government agencies — such as the Coast Guard, police, and fire departments — estimate their combined drone demands at around NT$1 billion (US$31.7 million)....