China has achieved mass production of ultra-pure silicon, according to the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) — an essential material for building silicon-based quantum computers. The breakthrough builds on a government push to sharpen its quantum research edge and reduce its reliance on foreign technology supply chains more broadly.
Shanghai Enflame Technology is nearing a STAR Market listing, bringing another Chinese AI chipmaker closer to public markets while losses, Tencent concentration, and a small share in Nvidia-led accelerators remain unresolved.
Huawei is preparing to launch commercial HarmonyOS-powered desktop PCs in September, marking another step in its effort to extend its self-developed operating system from smartphones and tablets into enterprise computing.
ByteDance is in talks to buy AI chips from Shanghai-based Iluvatar CoreX and is also considering using Baidu's Kunlunxin chips, as the TikTok parent expands its domestic chip options amid rising inference demand from its AI chatbot Doubao.
TSMC is accelerating its advanced packaging roadmap for AI chips, expanding CoWoS capacity while publicly disclosing new progress in glass substrate technology. The company is also signaling that next-generation packaging competition is shifting from CoWoS toward CoPoS as it builds out a fuller ecosystem ahead of rivals.
China has recently eased controls on some indium phosphide (InP) substrates, relieving a bottleneck in optical communications capacity for the second half of the year. But supply chain players say the long-term priority is still to expand substrate capacity from non-China sources, with supply security for the AI industry outweighing price.
A South Korean media report claiming TSMC is preparing to launch panel-level packaging at mass-production scale as early as 2027 has drawn skepticism from Taiwan industry sources, who say the timeline is likely premature and that the company remains focused on evaluating multiple advanced-packaging options.
The semiconductor supply chain is facing another raw material shock — this time from tungsten hexafluoride, or WF6, a specialty gas used in chip manufacturing. Planned production adjustments or exits by some Japanese suppliers in the second half of 2026 have intensified concerns over tighter global supply, sending prices sharply higher and raising the risk of disruption into 2027.
