Tesla ranked first in Taiwan's new-car registrations in September and said it is continuing the approval process for its Full Self-Driving (Supervised), or FSD (S), driver-assistance system. The automaker also presented a road-test framework at a technical review meeting as it works with government agencies and academic experts.

Nanya Technology is stepping up investment in new factory capacity to expand packaging and testing as some customers move into trial production for specification-based designs. The company said it has won approval from the National Science and Technology Council's (NSTC) park review committee to set up a 3D wafer packaging and testing plant in Pingtung Science Park, aiming to capture demand for high-performance, high-bandwidth memory solutions driven by fast-growing AI applications.

After US President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping, the two sides agreed to extend their trade truce, a move the market read positively. Industry participants expect previously delayed China-US shipments to be released gradually, pushing freight rates higher from October and tightening cargo space.

Biren Technology is preparing its next-generation GPU for mass production, advancing a domestic AI accelerator roadmap built around broader low-precision support and locally available manufacturing.

For years, automakers have grappled with an underlying paradox stemming from persistent EV raw-material pressures, as supply chains worldwide have been constrained by a familiar battery-chemistry trade-off: cost-effectiveness versus high-performance density.

Meta will link Naver Map's walking-navigation feature to its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta AI glasses in 2026, as it moves to strengthen its presence in South Korea before rival AI glasses from Google and Samsung Electronics arrive. According to South Korean media outlets Seoul Economic Daily and ETNews, the deal would make Naver the first South Korean company to partner with Meta in the AI glasses category.

Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series lifted first-week sales in China by 12% year over year, giving the soft smartphone market a much-needed boost and pushing Apple to the top of weekly sales with a 33% market share. The strong start underscores the brand loyalty that premium customers continue to show toward Apple's flagship phones, even amid market volatility.

Japanese companies sharply reduced their footprint in China over the past two years, with the number operating there falling 22.4% from 13,034 to 10,118 as of the end of June 2026, according to a survey released by Teikoku Databank on September 28, 2026. The total was the lowest since the data series began in 2010, and 29.7% below the 2012 peak of 14,394.

Rumors that TSMC is weighing a new semiconductor investment in Singapore have reignited concerns over its overseas expansion, while the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said on October 2, 2026, that the government will help the chipmaker expand investment in Taiwan.

Following its return to independent operations, AI startup Manus unveiled two new products in late September 2026: Manus 2.0 and "Cue," a personal agentic AI application. The product rollouts mark the company's first major strategic moves after its planned acquisition by Meta fell through.

Chip-performance gains have long been driven by an industry-wide focus on shrinking transistor nodes and tightening integration. While major economies including the US and Taiwan have historically sat at the summit of semiconductor manufacturing excellence, China has spent years building its own capabilities amid increasingly restricted access to some leading-edge technologies.

South Korea's LG Electronics and LS Electric are expanding deeper into AI data center infrastructure, targeting two of the fastest-growing bottlenecks around high-density computing: cooling and power delivery. LG is adding chiller capacity in the US and South Korea, while LS Electric has secured a US$133.41 million contract to supply ultra-high-voltage transformers for a hyperscale AI data center project in North America.

Facing a prolonged memory supply crunch, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced steep cuts to the memory specifications of the company's AI5 and AI6 chips to secure enough memory for Optimus mass production. Musk said the downgrades will not affect the humanoid robot's performance.

Huawei Technologies has unveiled its Mate 90 smartphone series, expanding the use of self-developed Kirin processors and HarmonyOS 7 as it looks to sustain flagship performance under US restrictions on access to advanced chipmaking technology.