Japan's digital technology innovation expo CEATEC 2026 opened on October 13 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, bringing together 821 companies and organizations from Japan and overseas to showcase Physical AI, smart infrastructure maintenance, and disaster-prevention simulations. The four-day event runs through October 16 and highlights how AI is moving beyond generative tools to control robots and connected devices across industry and daily life.

Japan's Yaskawa Electric plans to launch humanoid robots within the next one to two years and expects AI-powered humanoid robots to enter widespread use around 2030. The company also raised its revenue and net profit forecasts for fiscal 2026, citing a weaker yen, while lowering its operating profit forecast.

China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) plans to mass-produce next-generation 4F² DRAM by the end of 2026, potentially ahead of South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The announcement has fuelled speculation that China's memory technology is approaching or surpassing South Korean capabilities, while positioning CXMT for an early entry into the emerging 3D DRAM market.

Taiwanese semiconductor testing services provider King Yuan Electronics (KYEC) is expanding its US footprint, with its board approving an advance payment agreement with Nvidia. Under the arrangement, Nvidia will make advance payments to support KYEC and its US subsidiary AeternZ Semiconductor Testing in building local testing capacity, while securing capacity for Nvidia. The payments will be gradually offset through the provision of testing services.

China-based automakers are mounting an aggressive push into Europe, enjoying rapid early momentum. However, supply chain analysts note that the ultra-fast development model perfected in their domestic market cannot be seamlessly replicated in Europe. Currently, at least three hidden barriers test their cross-border adaptability.

China will reduce its export tax rebate for new energy vehicles (NEVs) from 13% to 9% on April 1, 2027, increasing cost pressure on automakers, particularly those selling lower-priced models with thin profit margins. The Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration announced the four-percentage-point reduction on October 12.

TCC Group Holdings (TCC) shareholders approved a plan on October 13 for subsidiary Cimpor International Holdings to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) and listing on a European securities market. The resolution received 4,287,569,701 votes in favor, representing 94.74% of voting rights represented at the vote, as the company sought to create a new funding channel for its European operations while maintaining Taiwan-based control of the business.

China's domestic AI chipmakers are shifting their competitive focus from individual GPU performance to system-level integration as AI models grow increasingly complex. Three priorities—3D packaging for greater power efficiency, optical interconnects for faster data transmission, and open software ecosystems for easier adoption—will determine whether Chinese GPUs can advance from standalone accelerators to large-scale AI computing clusters.

China's planned cut to export tax rebates for new energy vehicles could ripple through global auto markets, intensifying pressure on low-cost exporters while reshaping trade tensions with Europe. The move signals a wider rollback of industry support and may accelerate consolidation among weaker carmakers and raise prices for some overseas buyers.

NTT Data and Anthropic are in final-stage negotiations to develop a data center in Osaka, Japan, with power capacity of up to 500MW, according to Nikkei. The project would be Anthropic's first dedicated data center in Japan and one of the country's largest facilities, supporting the AI model developer's expanding infrastructure requirements.

Days before preorders open for Apple's first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan visited China to inspect its supply chain. On October 11, Khan and Foxconn rotating CEO Michael Chiang toured Foxconn's Zhengzhou technology park in Henan, focusing on iPhone Duo production, iPhone 18 Pro rear-camera modules, anodizing for exterior midframes, and chip-level surface-sputtering manufacturing.

While the rapid advancement of AI has driven steadily growing investment in large-scale infrastructure, one of its downstream effects is becoming increasingly visible in the memory sector, where supply has tightened as vendors prioritize higher-margin AI workloads.

Leveraging Singapore as its regional hub, Huawei has expanded hardware deployments, such as servers, across data centers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Following the US revocation of certain Intel chip export licenses to Huawei in 2024, the Chinese tech giant has aggressively adopted its proprietary Kunpeng chipsets, resulting in a dramatic increase in Kunpeng shipments to ASEAN data centers and telecom base stations, according to DIGITIMES Intelligence.

Industrial gas supplier Linde LienHwa is expanding its industrial decarbonization applications, with oxygen-enriched combustion technology adopted by Taiwan Cement, Walsin Lihwa, Jin Lian Cheng Resources, and LoToun Steel, among other major companies. The technology cuts exhaust volumes and improves combustion efficiency, increasing production capacity by more than 50% and reducing fuel consumption by up to 50%; the company is also joining partners across the logistics, transportation, and hydrogen industries to advance a hydrogen-as-a-service (HaaS) model.

Indian semiconductor engineering services firm Tessolve has raised US$75 million from US-based Vector Line Capital and says it is in advanced discussions to close multiple acquisitions over the next couple of quarters, as the Hero Electronix company pushes deeper into designing AI and high-performance computing chips.