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Researchers from Academia Sinica, National Central University (NCU), and Yuan Ze University announced significant advancements in hydrogen electrolysis technology at a December 17 press conference held at Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The team detailed the development of new core materials for proton-conducting solid oxide electrolysis (P-SOEL), aiming to reduce energy consumption and lower costs in hydrogen production....

LG Energy Solution (LGES) has ended a major electric vehicle (EV) battery supply agreement with Ford Motor Company valued at about KRW9.6 trillion (approx. US$6.53 billion). The termination highlights ongoing challenges and potential prolongation of the EV demand shortfall, industry observers say....

South Korea's Doosan Group has been selected as the preferred negotiation partner for the acquisition of semiconductor wafer maker SK Siltron, valued at approximately KRW4 trillion (approx. US$2.72 billion) to KRW5 trillion, according to reports from The Korea Economic Daily, The Elec, and other media outlets....

Honda Motor Company announced on Wednesday that it would suspend or reduce production at several factories in Japan and China starting late this month, the latest sign that a global scramble for automotive semiconductors continues to haunt the industry's recovery....

Amazon has launched a restructuring of its artificial intelligence operations, folding artificial general intelligence, in-house chip development, and quantum computing into a single business group under Peter DeSantis, a 27-year AWS veteran....

Taiwan's printed circuit board (PCB) industry is set for robust growth in 2025, supported by strong demand from AI servers amid a weakening traditional smartphone market. The Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) highlighted that despite external uncertainties such as exchange rate fluctuations and tariff negotiations, the sector benefits from price hikes driven by tight supply of high-end materials, leading to increases in both volume and prices....

Chinese suppliers have significantly increased the prices of drone components and dual-use technology exported to Russia, according to trade data that highlights Moscow's growing vulnerability as the conflict in Ukraine continues. Analysis of figures from China's General Administration of Customs indicates that costs for military-grade hardware rose sharply through October 2025, even as export volumes in several categories declined....

The smartphone market is expected to contract in 2026 as rising costs for memory and advanced process wafers drive manufacturers to reconsider pricing and specifications, according to research firm Counterpoint Research. The firm forecasts a 2.1% decline in smartphone shipments next year, with entry-level models anticipated to experience the sharpest drop due to heightened consumer sensitivity to price increases....

Intel has completed acceptance testing of the industry's first commercial high-NA EUV lithography system with a numerical aperture of 0.55, the ASML Twinscan EXE:5200B, laying the foundation for mass production of its 14A process node. This milestone marks the transition of high-NA EUV technology from research and development verification to high-volume manufacturing (HVM), enabling wafer throughput of 175 per hour and reinforcing Intel's efforts to reclaim leadership in advanced semiconductor processes....

As global demand for AI computing power intensifies, China's domestic GPU sector has reached a milestone. Following Moore Threads' successful IPO earlier this month, MetaX, a GPU developer with deep AMD roots, listed on Shanghai's STAR Market on December 17....

China hosts the world's largest display panel capacity, pulling upstream suppliers into an increasingly concentrated ecosystem. In polarizers, a string of acquisitions has pushed China to the top globally, with Shanjin Optoelectronics and Hong Kong Heng Mei Group forming a clear duopoly....

AMD CEO Lisa Su has announced plans to increase investment in China during a recent visit aimed at strengthening collaboration in the semiconductor and artificial intelligence sectors between China and the US. Su met with Chinese officials and industry leaders to underline AMD's commitment to the Chinese market....

On December 17, Rapidus announced a new suite of AI-based semiconductor design tools under its Rapidus AI-Assisted Design Solution (Raads), aimed at supporting the company's Rapid and Unified Manufacturing Service (RUMS) concept. The technology will be rebranded as Rapidus AI-Agentic Design Solution, with multiple tools scheduled for release starting in 2026. Customers will receive the tools alongside a process design kit (PDK) and reference flows....

imec said it has launched a strategic alignment initiative with Japan's Advanced SoC Research for Automotive (ASRA) to coordinate efforts on standardizing chiplet architectures for automotive applications, as the industry seeks to improve interoperability and reduce fragmentation in emerging chiplet ecosystems....

Google has reportedly initiated the TorchTPU project to enhance support for the PyTorch machine learning framework on its tensor processing units (TPUs), aiming to challenge the software dominance of Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem. Reuters, citing insiders, said the effort focuses on lowering barriers for developers and increasing TPU adoption in cloud and enterprise settings....

At the recent "Human X Car X Home" partner conference, Xiaomi's MiMo model team leader Luo Fuli introduced the open-source MiMo-V2-Flash model, designed to boost agent execution capabilities as foundational technology within Xiaomi's interconnected device ecosystem....

Jabil Inc., the global manufacturing linchpin that assembles everything from medical devices to data center racks, reported on Wednesday a surge in quarterly profit and revenue that comfortably cleared Wall Street's expectations, fueled by a relentless corporate appetite for artificial intelligence infrastructure....

Cyient Ltd's wholly owned subsidiary, Cyient Semiconductors Singapore Pte Ltd, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire over 65% of US-based power semiconductor company Kinetic Technologies for US$93 million. The transaction is expected to close by April 30, 2026....

Lithium battery maker SYNergy ScienTech is eyeing the growing demand for batteries in drones and unmanned vehicles by investing in related product development in 2025. With R&D and prototyping efforts in the field ongoing, the company will continue to expand into the non-consumer electronics sector, says president Colin Hsieh....

For the global automotive electronics industry, the Chinese market has become a glittering trap: a massive, indispensable arena of innovation that is simultaneously cannibalizing the profit margins of the very companies that sustain it....