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Wednesday 13 May 2026
Commentary: Trump's China dealbook favors Boeing, soybeans, and Wall Street over AI chips

Against a backdrop of persistently high tensions between the US and China, the upcoming Trump-Xi summit is being closely watched not only for its implications for trade, technology controls, and geopolitics, but also as a key signal of how both sides are reassessing the remaining areas where cooperation may still be possible

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Thursday 14 May 2026
Sharp delays Kameyama LCD shutdown as losses mount
Sharp is delaying the shutdown of its Kameyama No. 2 LCD plant to December from August, as customer demand has held up stronger than expected ahead of the planned production halt
Thursday 14 May 2026
NSK-NTN merger to create the world's largest bearing maker
Japan's NSK and NTN have agreed to pursue a merger that would create the world's largest bearing maker, as rising costs, slowing demand, and Chinese competition push Japan's industrial suppliers toward consolidation
Thursday 14 May 2026
China's semiconductor godfather warns against 2nm fixation
While the global semiconductor industry remains fixated on 3nm, 2nm, and the AI GPU arms race, SMIC founder and "China's semiconductor godfather" Zhang Rujing is pushing a sharply different message: the future of China's chip industry may depend less on chasing the world's most advanced nodes and more on dominating the vast market still built on mature processes
Thursday 14 May 2026
Korea races to narrow chip packaging gap with Taiwan and China

AI server demand is pushing semiconductor packaging into a new growth cycle, but the market remains heavily concentrated among a small group of global outsourced semiconductor assembly and test leaders and Taiwanese and Chinese companies, sharpening the challenge for South Korea's back-end chip industry

Wednesday 13 May 2026
China's fiber optic giant unveils world's largest preform for AI data center boom

China's Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies has unveiled what it claims is the world's largest optical fiber preform, highlighting China's accelerating push to strengthen its position in AI-driven optical networking and high-speed data infrastructure

Wednesday 13 May 2026
Doosan to build new CCL plant in Thailand
South Korean copper clad laminate (CCL) maker Doosan is reportedly moving to strengthen its overseas capacity in Thailand, a key production hub for Taiwan PCB suppliers serving global tech giants. The company has announced plans to set up a new subsidiary in Bangpu Industrial Estate and build a new CCL plant there
Wednesday 13 May 2026
China CPU vendors seize AI inference surge as Intel, AMD supplies tighten

The global race for AI computing power continues to intensify, beyond ongoing GPU shortages. CPUs, long viewed as secondary components in servers, are once again becoming critical parts of data center infrastructure due to the rapid rise of AI inference and AI agent applications

Wednesday 13 May 2026
Middle East war triggers helium crunch, sends China gas prices up 10-fold

As the Iran war and the geopolitical uncertainty it has triggered continue to intensify, global technology supply chains are coming under heavier-than-expected pressure. In addition to surging metal raw material prices, shortages of high-specification ISO containers used to transport helium, as well as specialty industrial solvents, are driving up production costs and threatening the stability of semiconductor manufacturing capacity

Wednesday 13 May 2026
Moore Threads builds China-made embodied AI stack with Lightwheel.ai

Moore Threads has entered a strategic partnership with Lightwheel Intelligent (Beijing) Technology (Lightwheel.ai) to jointly develop a domestic simulation and synthetic data infrastructure platform for embodied AI, highlighting China's broader push to reduce reliance on foreign AI computing and robotics software ecosystems

Wednesday 13 May 2026
Chinese battery firms gain market share as North American EV slowdown hits Korean Rivals
Global electric-vehicle battery demand continued to expand in the first quarter of 2026, even as growth in several major automotive markets slowed, underscoring the industry's shifting competitive landscape and the rising importance of energy-storage and infrastructure businesses
Tuesday 12 May 2026
AI drives IC price hikes, lifts China chip exports 83.7% in April
Global investment in AI computing power is continuing to boost semiconductor demand, and China's chip exports are surging in tandem. Data from China's General Administration of Customs show that China's IC export value rose 100.1% year-over-year in April 2026, marking the first time it has doubled and reflecting how price hikes in AI servers, data centers, and memory are spreading rapidly through the IC supply chain
Tuesday 12 May 2026
Samsung labor dispute rattles global supply chain
Samsung Electronics' escalating labor dispute has sparked global supply-chain concerns, with Apple and HP said to be warning they could exit the company's ecosystem. Suppliers, industry groups, and clients are now assessing contingency measures as mediation resumes, with potentially wide-ranging implications for production schedules, procurement stability, investor confidence, and the wider technology hardware market at large
Tuesday 12 May 2026
China AI model boom pulls smartphone supply chain into ecosystem battle

China's generative AI sector is seeing another wave of aggressive fundraising, with leading large language model (LLM) developers rapidly securing capital while expanding ties with consumer electronics and device ecosystems

Tuesday 12 May 2026
Kuaishou targets US$20B Kling AI spin-off to tap video generation demand
Kuaishou is holding talks with potential investors to spin off its Kling AI video unit in a pre-IPO funding round valuing it at US$20 billion, according to The Information. The Chinese social media company aims to capture investors' growing interest in AI stocks as video generation platforms reshape the face of social media and entertainment
Tuesday 12 May 2026
Altos targets South Korean AI server market with software edge
Altos Computing, Acer's AI server subsidiary, is targeting South Korea's relatively mature demand for high-end computing with flagship systems based on Nvidia Blackwell architecture. The company is also leaning on its in-house Altos aiWorks software as a key differentiator, as it transitions from a hardware maker into an AI infrastructure solutions provider