Huawei rotating chairman Eric Xu said at the HarmonyOS Ecosystem Conference 2026 in Shenzhen on August 28 that the HarmonyOS ecosystem now has more than 100,000 native applications, while HarmonyOS smartphones can access more than 400,000 apps. As of August 20, the number of devices running HarmonyOS 6 had exceeded 80 million and is expected to surpass 100 million in the fourth quarter of 2026.

China's AI investment boom is translating into sharply higher semiconductor profits while accelerating a longer-term expansion of domestic advanced-node capacity, memory production and chipmaking equipment.

China's largest domestic Tier 1 auto parts supplier, Jingwei Hirain, is stepping up its push into Malaysia and the ASEAN market, with President Chengjian Fan saying the region will become an important window for auto supply chain planning over the next 3-5 years.

At the Sustainability Environment Asia Conference 2026, Gunalan Kaniasan, principal for water resources in Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJC) at AWS, outlined strategies for water sustainability across the Asia-Pacific region. As data center demand grows, AWS is actively collaborating with governments and utilities to introduce recycled-water alternatives, navigate regulatory barriers, and test water-credit mechanisms.

At GATE 2026, Kaizhong, a major Chinese commutator maker, used its display to showcase how its automotive business has laid the groundwork for expansion into data centers, dexterous hands, and drones. The company is also targeting new opportunities in Southeast Asia as Chinese automakers deepen their regional footprint.

Samsung Electronics' packaging technology lead, Lee Hee-seok, outlined the company's advanced semiconductor packaging roadmap at Advanced Semiconductor Packaging & Chiplet Show (ASPS) 2026. Beyond sharing target production timelines and specifications for fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) and glass substrates, Lee emphasized AI's pivotal role in driving packaging R&D forward.

For the past two years, China's AI companies have competed on a single axis: whose model performs best. That contest is starting to give way to a harder one — whether those models can actually run, at scale, on chips made in China, as US restrictions on advanced AI chip exports raise the stakes of that question.

Competition in China's memory sector is extending beyond wafer capacity and process technology into semiconductor equipment, materials and components. YMTC is expanding its domestic supplier network around its Wuhan fabs, with 17 semiconductor companies signing projects worth more than CNY6 billion in the Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone (China Optics Valley).

Vanguard International Semiconductor said a fire broke out late on August 27 on the roof of its Wafer Fab 3 in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, but the incident caused no major impact on production line operations. The company said it activated emergency procedures immediately and evacuated employees from the plant.

Renesas Electronics has opened a physical AI and robotics lab in Beijing, a move that could speed the development of safer, smarter machines for factories, logistics, and homes worldwide. The facility is designed to help customers test, validate, and co-develop robotic systems as physical AI shifts from concept to real-world deployment.

More than a year after Honor first debated the idea internally, its Robot Phone has moved from a contentious concept to a mass-produced commercial product. But the significance of the device extends beyond creating a smartphone with an unconventional form factor.

IntelliEPI said on August 27 that revenue in the second quarter of 2026 was pressured after a Japanese substrate supplier shut down for nearly three weeks during the Golden Week holiday, reducing InP substrate availability and limiting indium phosphide production. The compound semiconductor epitaxy maker said demand for InP products tied to high-speed optical communications in AI data centers remained strong, and that substrate supply, not market demand, was the main short-term constraint.

Capital interest in China has become unusually concentrated on robotics following a state-backed commitment to redirect sizable portions of tech-related incentives from a perfectly mature EV market toward the robotics sector. Since the policy took effect, robot-oriented technologies have surged, with embodied intelligence emerging as one of the most prominent areas of development.

China is setting out a five-year industrial strategy centred on artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, 6G, robotics and advanced manufacturing, seeking to strengthen the country's manufacturing base while turning emerging technologies into new growth engines.

Efforts to curb the illicit trade of advanced AI hardware to China have intensified following a series of indictments and probes targeting the supply chain.