DIGITIMES news - East Asia

Friday 21 August 2026

Ubtech expands humanoid push as Nvidia executives quietly visit WRC booth

As the first publicly listed humanoid robot company, Ubtech Robotics is often referred to in China as the sector's "first humanoid robot stock." At the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC) in Beijing, the company found itself sharing the spotlight with recently listed Unitree Robotics, as both showcased their latest humanoid platforms.

Huawei, China power giant Huaneng explore AI compute-power coordination

Friday 21 August 2026

Lee Jae-myung meets SK chief Chey Tae-won with US chip investment pressure in focus

Friday 21 August 2026

Alibaba guides AI cloud revenue toward US$10 billion run-rate next quarter

Friday 21 August 2026

Charts: TSMC's share of Taiwan chip manufacturing revenue falls to 81.8% as memory makers scale up

Friday 21 August 2026

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Monday 24 August 2026

Samsung's DRAM capacity lead shrinks as SK Hynix expands faster

Samsung Electronics' DRAM wafer capacity will grow only marginally through 2027, with investment directed at node migration and line conversions rather than aggressive wafer-capacity expansion, according to Omdia data obtained by Chosun Biz.

Monday 24 August 2026

German auto industry hardens stance against Chinese competition

Germany's top auto industry lobby, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), is overhauling its strategy as it hardens its stance on China. The group has said China must put forward constructive proposals, quickly stop distorting competition, and avoid using export restrictions on technologies and materials to hinder free-world trade.

Monday 24 August 2026

Analysis: SK Hynix pushes beyond HBM with HBF and CPO

SK Hynix is moving on several fronts as it pushes deeper into system-level memory competition. From high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and high-bandwidth flash (HBF) to a recently published roadmap proposing to extend co-packaged optics (CPO) to the memory interface, the company increasingly appears to be competing not just over the next generation of HBM, but over how future artificial intelligence (AI) systems organize and access memory.

Monday 24 August 2026

Rapidus 2nm ramp stays on track as Japan readies JPY150 billion investment

Rapidus' plan to begin volume production of 2nm chips in the second half of FY2027 remains on schedule, with rising demand from AI chips and data centers providing a stronger-than-expected tailwind, CEO Atsuyoshi Koike told Reuters.

Monday 24 August 2026

Fujifilm opens new post-CMP cleaner plant at Oita to meet AI chip demand

Fujifilm has completed a new production building at its Oita Factory in Japan to make post-CMP cleaners, expanding capacity for materials used in advanced semiconductors amid rising global demand for AI chips. For readers worldwide, the move underscores how chip supply chains are adapting to support data centers, connected devices, and next-generation computing.

Monday 24 August 2026

Notebook brands shift production back to China as Southeast Asia costs rise

Notebook brands that rushed into Southeast Asia for manufacturing are moving production back to China, as the cost gap remains too wide and the impact of substitute tariffs has proved limited, according to supply chain sources. The shift is expected to affect Taiwan original device manufacturers (ODMs) serving new customer lines in Vietnam and Thailand.

Monday 24 August 2026

Shanghai accepts YMTC's STAR Market listing application

China's largest NAND flash maker is moving toward a major Shanghai listing, but global investors will be watching more than the size of the deal. YMTC's IPO comes as chip demand rises, US export controls bite, and memory markets remain highly cyclical, raising questions about whether its rapid profit surge can last.

Monday 24 August 2026

Alibaba plans HKD80 billion share placement to fund AI expansion

Alibaba Group Holding said it plans to raise HKD80 billion (US$10.2 billion) through the placement of newly issued shares to non-US investors outside the US, a move that could bolster its artificial intelligence ambitions and shape competition in global cloud and AI markets. The company said the proceeds would be used entirely to expand its AI capabilities and infrastructure.

Monday 24 August 2026

AI chip boom lifts South Korean semiconductor materials makers' profits in 2Q26

The AI semiconductor investment boom is increasingly spilling over into the materials supply chain. South Korea's major semiconductor materials suppliers broadly improved profitability in the second quarter of 2026, as stronger demand for advanced materials drove sharp operating profit growth. With customers expected to expand capacity from 2027 onward, the sector could see another wave of revenue growth.

Monday 24 August 2026

Xiaomi unveils second-generation humanoid robot at Beijing conference

Xiaomi unveiled its second-generation humanoid robot at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing, where the machine made its first public appearance and performed gestures for attendees. The demonstration highlighted the company's latest push into humanoid robotics, with the robot able to follow live commands and recognize scenes through a large model.

Monday 24 August 2026

Galbot's fast rise marks new wave in China's humanoid robot race

Beyond established players such as Unitree Robotics, AgiBot and UBTech Robotics, a new wave of challengers is emerging quickly in China's humanoid robot sector. Among them is Galbot, which, despite being only three years old, closed a CNY2.5 billion (approx. US$350 million) funding round in March 2026 that lifted its post-money valuation above CNY20 billion. It is also the only embodied AI company that investor CATL has backed twice, and has vaulted into the first tier of China's humanoid robot makers.

Saturday 22 August 2026

Automation Taipei 2026: If AI is advancing so fast, why is the factory floor still so hard to automate?

For all the extraordinary progress made by artificial intelligence, the physical world remains stubbornly difficult to automate.

Saturday 22 August 2026

Column: Lessons in supply chain resilience from China Huadian's power-compute coordination model

As AI develops rapidly, data centers are driving equally rapid growth in electricity demand. The stability of future energy supplies will directly determine whether AI computing capacity can continue to expand.

Friday 21 August 2026

China chip equipment maker Piotech posts 1,324% profit surge, advanced deposition scales up

Piotech Inc. reported a sharp rise in first-half 2026 earnings, helped by stronger demand for semiconductor deposition equipment, wider adoption of new process tools and improving economies of scale.

Friday 21 August 2026

Cambricon advances sixth-gen AI silicon, broadens support for DeepSeek, Qwen and GLM

Cambricon Technologies chairman and president Chen Tian-shi said the company's sixth-generation AI processor and instruction set remain under development, with the next-generation platform targeting large-model training and inference while improving programmability, ease of use, performance, power efficiency and chip area.

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Aug 24, 08:00

STMicroelectronics Unveils ISO 21780-Compliant 48V Pre-Driver with 8-Channel Flexibility

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