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Following the conclusion of tariff negotiations between Taiwan and the US, both sides have presented differing interpretations: Taiwan's Executive Yuan has expressed satisfaction with securing its four major goals, while US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick described the combined US$500 billion investment as a "down payment," and stressed plans to shift about 40% of Taiwan's supply chain and production capacity to the US before Trump's current term ends....

Taiwan's AI server supply chain delivered broad-based growth in 2025, fueled by surging generative AI and cloud data center spending, but the biggest gains clustered around two areas: system-level integration led by original design manufacturer (ODM)/electronics manufacturing services (EMS) manufacturers, and a set of high-power, AI-specific components—especially thermal solutions, rack hardware, and high-speed optical interconnect....

Memory packaging and testing firms PowerTech Technology and ChipMOS Technologies recorded significant profit increases in November 2025, reflecting robust demand in the memory sector. PowerTech posted a net profit after tax of NT$786 million (US$24.85 million), up 16.27% year over year, while ChipMOS reported NT$255 million, a 240% increase compared to the previous year....

Samsung Electronics' foundry business is showing signs of a gradual recovery, with fab utilization expected to average in the low-60% range in the first half of 2026, up from the 50% range in the second half of 2025, according to a report by ZDNet Korea....

Edge AI chip startups split adoption between TSMC's mature processes and Samsung's advanced technology; Samsung seeks to gain trust from the market with innovations for edge AI....

Wikipedia is marking its 25th anniversary by broadening its paid data licensing partnerships with major AI companies, disclosing its list of collaborators publicly for the first time. The Wikimedia Foundation has granted Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Corporation, Meta Platforms Inc., Mistral AI, and Perplexity access to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia project content via its enterprise product, Wikimedia Enterprise, according to reports from CNBC and TechCrunch....

The four-year Russia-Ukraine war stalemate persists, while escalating US-EU tensions linked to the US attempt to purchase Greenland have triggered retaliatory tariffs and market disruptions. Europe's imposition of tariffs and restrictions worth EUR93 billion (US$107.95 billion) on US companies is contributing to a sharp decline in global shipping indexes....

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has named Foxconn Industrial Internet's (FII) Bac Ninh Province facility in Vietnam as the country's first Sustainable Lighthouse Factory, recognizing its use of generative AI (GenAI) to deliver measurable carbon reductions and set a new benchmark for green manufacturing....

The silicon photonics (SiPh) and common packaged optics (CPO) solutions supply chains are emerging this year. Japanese testing equipment maker Advantest says that although optical communications have advantages in energy efficiency and high transmission speeds, there remains three major technical challenges that have yet to be standardized before related chip products are formally launched. These issues will need to be addressed as the industry transitions from electrical to optical communications....

Amid escalating geopolitical tensions between China and Japan, China has recently imposed stricter review measures on rare earth exports to Japan. Chinese authorities now reportedly require exporters to submit more detailed declarations, including the actual use of rare earths, the products they are applied to, and whether these products are re-exported to the US or other third countries....

At its year-end celebration on January 16, ASUS held a confident tone amid a turbulent global outlook. Jonney Shih, the company's chairman, told employees that despite mounting uncertainty from international tariffs and geopolitical tensions heading into 2025, the company had delivered what he described as a "solid report card," crediting strong execution and organizational cohesion....

ASM International said it posted stronger-than-expected preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 2025, buoyed by a rebound in demand from China and robust orders from advanced logic and foundry customers. The company also raised its outlook for the first quarter of 2026, signaling growing confidence in the semiconductor capital-spending cycle....

Samsung Electronics will begin test operations of extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment at its Taylor, Texas, fabrication plant in March, as it prepares for full operations in the second half of 2026, according to Hankyung. The facility is set to manufacture Tesla's AI5 and AI6 autonomous driving chips under a US$16.5 billion contract secured in July 2025....

TSMC and Apple have maintained a close partnership over the years, working like one team to push Moore's Law forward. According to SemiAnalysis, Apple employs hundreds of engineers stationed at TSMC headquarters, effectively treating the foundry as an extension of its own operations....

The US' recent announcement of a 25% tariff on certain advanced computing chips, including Nvidia's H200 and AMD's MI325X, could have implications for Malaysia's semiconductor sector, though experts suggest immediate effects may be limited. The tariffs, justified by the White House on national security grounds, aim to incentivize domestic chip production and reduce reliance on overseas suppliers such as Taiwan....

At CES 2026 in the US, Nvidia unveiled its open-source vision-language-action (VLA) model series, Alpamayo, signaling a new phase in the development of autonomous driving technologies. The launch has intensified competition among global automakers, which are now ramping up investment and racing to secure computing power centered on VLA architectures....

The global contest for semiconductor leadership took a confrontational turn this week. US officials used Micron Technology's groundbreaking in upstate New York to deliver blunt warnings to foreign rivals....

As generative AI (Gen AI) and sensing technologies mature, AI glasses are evolving from standalone wearables into a new generation of human-computer interaction interfaces. Featuring first-person perspective, scene recognition, and hands-free operation, these devices are seen as an ideal extension of smartphones with the potential to disrupt mainstream mobile hardware design....

Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., and MediaTek are all set to advance their smartphone system-on-chip (SoC) offerings to the 2nm process node in 2026. This coordinated move signals the three giants' determination to maintain technological leadership, even as the incremental benefits of process improvements come under scrutiny....

As the AI chip computing power race intensifies, data center electricity demand is surging, forcing a fundamental redesign of server power architectures. Taiwanese connector maker CviLux Corp is emerging as a key beneficiary of this transition, leveraging its board-level power connector expertise to ride the shift from traditional AC systems to high-voltage direct current (HVDC) designs in next-generation AI servers....