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.
Chinese researchers have demonstrated wafer-scale graphene quantum rectifiers that convert weak radio-frequency signals into DC electricity at room temperature without an external magnetic field. The development offers a potential route towards integrating wireless energy-harvesting devices into conventional semiconductor manufacturing processes.
SK Hynix has unveiled a new processor architecture designed to reduce power consumption and chip area in solid-state drive (SSD) controllers, expanding its efforts to address storage bottlenecks as AI data centers demand faster and more efficient access to data.
Samsung affiliates plan to invest a combined KRW12.26 trillion (approx. US$9.18 billion) in semiconductor operations across South Korea and Vietnam, but the projects face different financial and supply-chain challenges. Samsung Electronics plans to finance about 63% of its Vietnamese memory testing investment through future profits, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEMCO) faces potential equipment delivery delays and material supply constraints as it expands semiconductor substrate production.
ATE Energy International Co. Ltd. reported consolidated revenue of NT$6.667 billion (US$209.0 million) for the first three quarters of 2026, up 132.52% from a year earlier, driven by the continued progress of major energy engineering projects in the Philippines and steady recognition of engineering revenue.
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) chairman and general manager Gerald Yin has warned of a potential AI investment bubble, cautioning that surging demand for chipmaking equipment does not shield the semiconductor industry from cyclical swings in capital expenditure.
Rising capital expenditures by global cloud service providers (CSPs) are accelerating orders for AI computing infrastructure, boosting both the specifications and volumes of passive components and driving strong third-quarter 2026 results for Taiwan suppliers including Yageo, Walsin Technology, Holystone Enterprise, Lelon Electronics, Tai-Tech, Apaq, Ta-I Technology, Viking, and Thinking. The capacity crunch is extending lead times for capacitors and resistors, while suppliers are preparing for another round of price increases as demand visibility stretches beyond 2027.
Shenzhen-based Blue Core Computing (Shenzhen) Technology has raised nearly CNY2 billion (≈ US$298.7 million) in Series B financing to accelerate production of its RISC-V server processors with integrated AI capabilities. The funding follows the deployment of its LX500 chip in Lenovo servers, advancing China's efforts to develop alternatives to x86 and Arm architectures.
China's Hua Hong Group has signed strategic agreements with four domestic semiconductor equipment suppliers to accelerate the adoption of locally developed wafer fabrication tools, reinforcing China's chipmaking self-sufficiency efforts. The partnerships coincide with Hua Hong's ambitious 2030 market-share targets for specialty processes, including embedded flash memory, power management, and image sensors.
