Chinese officials have renewed calls to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) more deeply into manufacturing as Beijing seeks to modernize traditional industries, strengthen industrial competitiveness, and cultivate new growth drivers

Baidu said its core AI businesses became the majority of the company's revenue in the first quarter of 2026, driven by rapid growth in AI cloud infrastructure, expanded foundation-model support on its model-as-a-service platform Qianfan, and stronger commercial adoption of its Kunlunxin AI chips

Analysts offered mixed assessments of Baidu after the Chinese internet company posted first-quarter revenue that topped market expectations, with some pointing to stronger AI monetization. In contrast, others warned that profitability remains under pressure from rising investment and lower-margin AI businesses

Prices for semiconductor-grade hydrogen fluoride supplied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expected to rise sharply between late June and July, as higher costs for a key China-sourced raw material ripple through South Korea's chip supply chain, according to industry sources cited by The Elec

Acer is gaining ground in India's PC market, with the Taiwanese PC vendor citing the latest market data showing it ranked second in the country in the first quarter of 2026

China's foundry sector is charting a different course as the global semiconductor market remains focused on AI GPUs, the 2nm process node, and advanced packaging. Led by Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Hua Hong Semiconductor, domestic Chinese foundries have not stalled under US sanctions; instead, they are accelerating efforts to build a China-specific foundry ecosystem amid the AI boom, recovering demand for mature nodes, and a push for supply-chain self-reliance

China's semiconductor equipment localization campaign is entering a more demanding phase, shifting from proving that domestic alternatives can work to showing they can meet the reliability, throughput, and yield requirements of production-scale manufacturing

China's auto market is entering a far more difficult phase. Domestic demand has slowed sharply, and for many carmakers the industry increasingly resembles a road with no visible end. Yet from the perspective of the automotive supply chain, two very different stories are unfolding inside the same market

Samsung Electronics has significantly improved yields for its latest DRAM technologies used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), according to IT Chosun, underscoring the intensifying race among memory makers to secure leadership in AI-related semiconductors