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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)....

Alphabet's Google has unveiled its KV cache quantization compression technology, TurboQuant, promising dramatic reductions in memory usage for AI inference. While the innovation has captured global attention, South Korea's academic and industrial sectors remain skeptical about its practical feasibility, even as they firmly expect AI inference to continue driving substantial growth in memory demand....

Global outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) leader ASE Technology Holding (ASEH) held an earnings call on April 29, reporting a robust first quarter of 2026 that broke from the traditional seasonal slowdown. Growth was driven primarily by sustained strong demand for leading-edge advanced packaging (LEAP) technologies, alongside a simultaneous rebound in wire bonding orders — together fueling an 87% year-on-year surge in quarterly net profit after tax, the second highest on record for the period....

As SpaceX prepares for a public debut at a valuation targeting US$1.75 trillion, new regulatory filings have revealed a corporate governance structure that positions Elon Musk as an unassailable leader. According to Reuters, the company's IPO filing includes a provision stating that Musk cannot be removed from his roles as CEO and chairman of the board without his own consent....

Global smartphone system-on-chip (SoC) shipments fell 8% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026, as a prolonged memory shortage weighed on handset makers and chipset vendors, according to Counterpoint Research....

Microsoft executives defended the company's rising capital spending after reporting stronger-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results, saying demand for Azure, Copilot, and AI infrastructure continues to exceed available capacity....

Meta Platforms' first-quarter 2026 earnings delivered one of the most consequential procurement signals in recent memory for Asia's technology supply chain....

China-based GPU developer MetaX reported a solid start to 2026, underscoring how domestic high-performance GPUs are beginning to translate technical progress into tangible commercial traction....

Samsung Electronics executives said major memory customers are seeking longer-term supply commitments and pulling forward demand for 2027, underscoring how tight supply is reshaping negotiations across DRAM, HBM, and server storage....

Episil Precision will reallocate production toward larger-diameter silicon epitaxy and silicon photonics to improve profitability and meet AI supply chain demand, the company announced. The move includes cutting lower-margin small-wafer lines and expanding capex to scale capacity for 2027 and 2028....

Alphabet's first-quarter 2026 results point to a company increasingly defined by AI-driven momentum across search, cloud, and subscriptions—with CEO Sundar Pichai framing the quarter as evidence that its "full-stack" AI strategy is beginning to translate into measurable business performance....

Quanta Cloud Technology's expected 2026 server momentum could reshape global data center supply chains, as rising demand for both AI and general-purpose servers — highlighted by surging orders from Alphabet's Google — may tighten processor supplies, alter ODM margins, and influence procurement strategies across cloud, enterprise, and edge markets worldwide....

Intel's reorganization under Kevork Kechichian, backed by CEO Lip‑Bu Tan, aims to reposition amid Nvidia's AI dominance and Arm's rise, signaling a shift to CPU-centric orchestration alongside GPUs and ASICs—an opportunity with major worldwide implications for data-center economics, AI deployment strategies, and competition in the next two to three years....

Recent financial reports from leading European and American IDM companies, Texas Instruments (TI) and NXP Semiconductors, reveal that although growth in automotive chips remains modest, the continued increase is notable given the overall global automotive market downturn. Industry insiders note that the rising semiconductor content in vehicles is accelerating fast enough to offset weak vehicle sales, supporting a positive outlook for automotive chips....

Chunghwa Precision Test Tech reported that strong demand from high-performance computing chip customers drove first-quarter 2026 revenue to NT$1.357 billion (US$43 million) and operating profit to NT$342 million, with earnings per share reaching 10.43 despite seasonal headwinds. The firm said probe card sales tied to HPC workloads surged, lifting full probe card revenue to NT$405 million and accounting for nearly 30% of total sales in the quarter....