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China's optical industry is confronting significant challenges as several lens module manufacturers reportedly plan layoffs early in 2026, prompted by sluggish smartphone sales and intense price competition. Industry sources indicate that the sector's difficulties are unlikely to abate in the coming year due to persistent market and macroeconomic pressures....

Chinese microcontroller (MCU) supplier AMEC has raised prices on its MCU and NOR Flash products by 15% to 50%, citing tighter chip supply and higher packaging and testing costs. The company said the adjustment is part of a broader price increase cycle across China's semiconductor sector in early 2026, which began with AI processors and memory products and has since extended to wafer fabrication, backend services, and upstream materials and components....

Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) has signed a licensing agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for high-voltage (650V) and low-voltage (80V) gallium nitride (GaN) process technologies, the company announced on January 28. This deal aims to accelerate Vanguard's development of next-generation GaN power devices for applications in data centers, automotive electronics, industrial control, and energy management....

United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) reported a moderate revenue increase in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven by favorable currency exchange rates and growth in its 22/28nm semiconductor business. Consolidated revenue reached NT$61.81 billion (US$1.97 billion), up 4.5% sequentially from NT$59.13 billion and 2.4% higher year-on-year. The company's gross margin improved to 30.7% from 29.8% in the previous quarter. Net income after tax stood at NT$10.06 billion, translating to earnings per share of NT$0.81....

Microsoft's latest financial results point to accelerating demand for AI and cloud infrastructure, with Intelligent Cloud growth approaching 30% year on year. The figures underline mounting pressure on data center capacity and capital spending, signaling continued tightness across the AI infrastructure supply chain....

Tesla's latest earnings showed softer vehicle demand but improving margins, while management and analysts focused on the company's accelerating investments in custom chips, AI compute, and robotics as key to sustaining growth across its automotive, autonomy, and energy businesses....

Meta Platforms' latest results point to a sustained escalation in AI infrastructure investment, with capex set to rise sharply in 2026. The outlook suggests growing implications for data center capacity, chip demand, and the broader AI supply chain, even as investors weigh rising costs against resilient earnings....

After preparing for half a year, China-based smartphone maker Vivo has reportedly decided to terminate its AI glasses project. Its exit was not due to a lack of technical capability, but rather the identification of three fundamental challenges facing the smart glasses market....

In recent years, data center development has focused on boosting the performance of CPUs, GPUs, and other compute processors. As computing scale continues to expand, the incremental benefits of single-chip performance improvements are declining. The core challenge is now how to efficiently coordinate and scale large pools of computing resources across system-level architectures....

Elite Material Co. (EMC), a leading copper-clad laminate (CCL) manufacturer, has acquired land and buildings in Taiwan's Taoyuan Guanyin Industrial Park from Far Eastern New Century Corporation for NT$2.78 billion (US$88.5 million). The purchase supports EMC's plans to expand production capacity to meet growing demand for high-end printed circuit board (PCB) materials driven by artificial intelligence (AI) applications....

I describe the close integration of Taiwan's semiconductor and electronics industries as the spillover of chip economic value. In earlier phases of the industry, economic value creation in electronic systems was highly concentrated at the chip level. Advancing process nodes alone was sufficient to capture most of the value. That model no longer holds. Today, improvements in manufacturing technology must propagate beyond wafer fabrication to packaging, testing, and ultimately system-level integration to translate into tradable economic value....

Global technology companies, including Google, are increasingly shifting new product introduction (NPI) stages away from China to reduce geopolitical risks, with recent reports indicating Google has begun relocating NPI for its premium smartphones to Vietnam. Industry insiders note initial progress but emphasize significant structural hurdles in this complex transition....

In a recent interview with Jodi Shelton, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, reflected on a life spent in near-constant motion. After years of crisscrossing the globe, he said, there are three places where he always lands with a sense of joy: Hawaii, Taiwan, and Japan....

As the global trade landscape shifts under the weight of new US policies, a distinct divergence has emerged in East Asia. While South Korea currently faces a tariff hike to 25% amid legislative delays in ratifying its trade pact, Taiwan has successfully locked in a fixed 15% non-compounding rate....

As demand accelerates for digital transformation, energy transition, and smart manufacturing, Taiwan and Germany appear poised to expand cooperation across a widening range of industries, including semiconductors, advanced machinery, green technologies, and applied innovation....

The Japanese government has agreed to become the first international partner in a US-led initiative accelerating scientific research through AI. According to media outlets including Nikkei and The Register, on January 27, 2026, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced its formal participation in the Trump administration's Genesis Mission program....

Realtek said at its January 28, 2026, earnings call that fourth-quarter 2025 revenue reached NT$26.28 billion (US$840 million), down 10.9% from the previous quarter and 0.3% from a year earlier. Gross margin declined to 48.1%, down 1.6 percentage points quarter over quarter and 0.3 percentage points year over year. Operating profit fell to NT$2.34 billion, down 25% sequentially and 18.9% annually....

The surge in AI demand is driving massive memory consumption, pushing the memory industry into a bullish phase. Market consensus expects tight memory supply and demand conditions to ease only by 2028. This shift is impacting industrial PC (IPC) manufacturers not just through short-term inventory fluctuations but evolving into mid- to long-term structural changes. IPC players are now comprehensively adjusting pricing mechanisms, product platforms, and procurement strategies to adapt to this new environment....

Seagate Technology posted record revenue, profit, and total storage capacity shipped in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 (2QFY26, ended January 2), fueled by strong AI-driven data center demand, with its nearline storage capacity for 2026 fully booked....

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology advances, the robotics market is maturing rapidly. South Korean electronic component makers are reportedly viewing robots as their next growth engine. According to ChosunBiz, major South Korean component manufacturers now consider parts for humanoid robots among key mid-to-long-term growth drivers....