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Tuesday 18 August 2026
VeriSilicon revenue surges 91% as AI ASIC backlog swells to US$1.85B

VeriSilicon posted record first-half 2026 revenue of CNY1.86 billion (US$276 million), up 91.37% year-on-year, as AI computing demand lifted custom silicon and mass-production services.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
Huawei Hubble builds China's InP optical chip stack for the AI interconnect era
Huawei's semiconductor investment arm is seeing an earlier optical-chip strategy line up with the AI infrastructure boom. Since 2019, Hubble Technology Investment Co. has backed a string of Chinese photonics and high-speed interconnect companies, including Vertilite, Yuanjie Semiconductor, North Ocean Photonics (NOP), and Newport Coast (Beijing) Technology, covering lasers, optical components, and transmission chips. The portfolio is now increasingly exposed to the same 800G, 1.6T, and 3.2T interconnect demand reshaping AI data centers.
Tuesday 18 August 2026
Tokyo University's satellite legacy helped build Japan's space startup wave—now comes the harder part
Japan may not possess the industrial scale or launch economics of satellite giants such as SpaceX, but the country has established its own development mechanism around persistent experimentation, research-driven breakthroughs, and a growing concentration of aerospace talent.
Tuesday 18 August 2026
Russia fuels China's ICE exports while Europe's NEV figures mask transshipment demand
China's accelerating auto export boom reveals two trends that challenge conventional assumptions. First, Russia—China's largest single export market—is still overwhelmingly driven by internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Second, while new energy vehicle (NEV) exports are concentrated in South America and Europe, some headline export figures do not necessarily reflect actual end-market demand.
Tuesday 18 August 2026
China AI chip sales scale: Biren's revenue rockets up to 21-fold

Chinese AI chipmaker Biren expects first-half 2026 revenue to reach CNY1.15-1.3 billion (US$171-193 million), up about 1,852% to 2,107% from a year earlier, as demand for GPGPU computing expands across AI coding, long-horizon AI agents and generative AI workloads, according to Cninfo data cited in a report by the Hong Kong Economic Times (HKET).

Tuesday 18 August 2026
Samsung deepens humanoid push with new robotics lab

Samsung Electronics has begun operating a dedicated physical AI research lab focused on humanoid control and manipulation, according to South Korean news outlet Edaily. The move extends its robotics push from hardware investment into the AI and control technologies needed for robots to operate in real-world environments.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
South Korea's NPS backs AI optical link amid US scrutiny

South Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) has drawn fresh attention after joining a cornerstone investment in the Hong Kong IPO of Chinese optical communications maker Zhongji Innolight. The investment came at a time when the company had already been placed on the US Department of Defense's list of Chinese Military Companies (CMC). The case has reignited debate over how large public pension funds assess geopolitical and regulatory risk. Money Today reported that the move comes as US-China tech competition extends beyond chips, equipment, and supply-chain controls into global capital markets.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
Analysis: China's AI chip ambitions collide with Ajinomoto's 95% grip on ABF film

China's semiconductor self-reliance campaign is moving beyond lithography machines and advanced processors into less visible materials that can be just as difficult to replace. Ajinomoto Build-up Film, or ABF, has become the latest pressure point.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
South Korea's Gwangju chip hub faces looming water crunch as experts push underground storage and AI management
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are preparing to invest in four memory fabs in southwestern South Korea, but alongside power infrastructure, the semiconductor industry's uninterrupted demand for water is emerging as another major burden on the region.
Tuesday 18 August 2026
China's Horizon Robotics sets J7 against Nvidia, Tesla

Horizon Robotics is preparing its next-generation Journey 7 (J7) automotive AI chip family for mass production in 2027, aiming to extend its lead in China's L2+ assisted-driving market into the higher end of autonomous-driving computing.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
MicroLED still lacks key LTPO TFT tech

MicroLED remains a promising next-generation display technology, but industry analysts say its commercial breakthrough still hinges on thin-film transistor (TFT) technology and the participation of South Korean panel makers Samsung Display (SDC) and LG Display (LGD). Yet SDC is reportedly taking a cautious stance on microLED TV applications.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
Samsung faces tougher HBM4E test after HBM4 comeback

Samsung Electronics' semiconductor chief has told executives not to treat the company's HBM4 comeback as proof that its recovery is complete, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The caution comes as the memory industry shifts to a generation that will be harder to manufacture at scale.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
Humanoid robots expose the limits of chasing higher TOPS

Humanoid robots are moving from demonstrations toward mass production, changing the priorities of chip design. Instead of simply chasing higher AI compute and TOPS, or trillions of operations per second, the industry is increasingly focused on how efficiently perception, computing, decision-making, and control can work together within tight power, cost, and latency constraints.

Tuesday 18 August 2026
South Korea-India venture Indichem targets semiconductor materials supply chain without China
A new joint venture between South Korean and Indian chemical firms is betting that semiconductor materials can be made without touching China at any stage, positioning itself as an alternative supply route just as the US-China conflict pushes chipmakers to rethink where their raw materials come from.
Tuesday 18 August 2026
H3 launch ramp pushes Mitsubishi Electric toward a new era of parallel satellite production

The expansion of Mitsubishi Electric's satellite manufacturing business is converging with the higher launch cadence targeted for Japan's H3 program, developed jointly by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI).