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Wednesday 22 July 2026
Chinese equipment makers win early production orders as TGV packaging moves beyond the lab

Chinese semiconductor equipment suppliers are beginning to secure production orders for through-glass via (TGV) manufacturing tools, marking a shift from prototype validation toward commercial deployment as the industry moves to develop glass substrates for next-generation AI chip packaging.

Wednesday 22 July 2026
WAIC 2026: Enflame debuts China's first glass-based CoPoS AI chip sample

Chinese AI chip developer Enflame said at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 that it had jointly showcased an AI chip sample with Shanghai Xianfeng Technology using glass-based Chip-on-Panel-on-Substrate (CoPoS) panel-level advanced packaging.

Wednesday 22 July 2026
WAIC 2026: Biren's 1,024-GPU NPO super node sharpens China's AI infrastructure race

Chinese GPU developer Biren Technology unveiled a next-generation near-packaged optics (NPO) super node at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026, targeting the growing computing demands of large language models and AI agents.

Wednesday 22 July 2026
Kimi K3 sparks new 'DeepSeek moment,' reshaping AI's winners and losers
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup Moonshot AI launched its next-generation Kimi K3 model on July 17, delivering performance comparable with leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic on several critical tasks at only a fraction of the cost.
Wednesday 22 July 2026
China smartphone shipments fall 3% in first half as Huawei regains No. 1
China smartphone shipments fell about 3% in the first half of 2026, even as major vendors accelerated new product launches and pushed harder into mid- to high-end models to protect margins. Huawei reclaimed the No. 1 market share position in China, while Apple and other rivals prepared new devices for the second half, according to the source material.
Wednesday 22 July 2026
China weighs stricter AI and chip export curbs after Kimi K3 benchmark win

China is considering tighter export controls on artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies amid intensifying competition with the US in frontier AI. The proposed measures, reported by Financial Times, would also target overseas acquisitions of advanced technology startups and could appear in the next revision of Beijing's export control catalogue.

Wednesday 22 July 2026
Japan weighs new standards post to gain an edge in AI and chips
Japan is considering creating a senior government position to coordinate international standardization across ministries and industry, as Tokyo seeks to convert a sweeping investment drive into a stronger global position for Japanese companies in artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and other strategic technologies.
Tuesday 21 July 2026
Haesung DS lands CXMT as DDR5 substrate customer, weighs panel production for DDR6

Haesung DS has reportedly added China's CXMT as a customer for DDR5 package substrates as the South Korean supplier expands its DDR5 business and considers panel-based production for higher-layer-count products for the DDR6 generation.

Tuesday 21 July 2026
Ishihara Sangyo doubles high-purity titanium dioxide capacity on AI server demand

Ishihara Sangyo Kaisha plans to double production capacity for high-purity titanium dioxide used to make dielectric materials for multilayer ceramic capacitors, as rising AI server power requirements increase demand for the components.

Tuesday 21 July 2026
China's magnet exports hit records — but the tap stays political

China's exports of rare-earth permanent magnets reached record levels in the first half of 2026, yet the same customs data reveal a market increasingly shaped less by demand than by Beijing's discretion — flowing freely to most of the world, throttled to the US, and, since January, newly restricted to Japan.

Tuesday 21 July 2026
Power and water constraints cast doubt on South Korea's Honam memory cluster, experts say
South Korea's plan to develop a semiconductor cluster in the Honam region (Jeolla Province) is facing mounting scrutiny over whether the area can support the enormous energy and infrastructure requirements of advanced memory manufacturing.
Tuesday 21 July 2026
Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron pull back on in-house CXL controller plans

Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology are reportedly scaling back or shelving plans to commercialize internally developed Compute Express Link (CXL) controller chips, shifting more controller work to specialist fabless suppliers while continuing to develop CXL-based memory products.

Tuesday 21 July 2026
China's Z.ai reportedly powers up 1GW data center built entirely on domestic chips

Chinese AI developer Z.ai has completed a giant data center running exclusively on domestically made chips, a milestone in Beijing's drive to replace restricted Nvidia silicon for future AI development.

Tuesday 21 July 2026
DDR5 module spot prices hit record highs as China-made dies narrow price gap
The pace of memory contract price increases has begun to slow in the second half of 2026, but DDR5 spot prices continue to climb as AI and server applications absorb available supply, according to industry sources.
Tuesday 21 July 2026
WAIC 2026 elevates the 'token factory' — why is China chasing cheap tokens over bigger models?

At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, held July 17-20 across "three districts and four venues" with more than 1,100 exhibitors, one phrase recurred across vendor booths and keynotes: the "token factory".