Taiwan plans to deepen its role in global technology supply chains as demand for AI chips, advanced packaging, and memory tightens worldwide. A new policy agenda aims to bolster semiconductor output, expand AI deployment, and strengthen resilience in industries that affect manufacturers, investors, and consumers across regions.
SK Hynix reportedly ended talks with LG Electronics over outsourcing part of the backend design for a next-generation enterprise SSD (eSSD) controller, but the memory maker told DIGITIMES that it had not discussed commissioning eSSD controller design work.
Four major US technology companies have committed a combined US$2 billion to investments across South Korea's semiconductor materials, equipment, and clean energy sectors. The move is expected to reinforce critical supply chain resilience between the US and South Korea while providing momentum for the South Korean government's three strategic "Mega Projects."
Memory inventories at Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have fallen below 10 days of supply as AI infrastructure spending drives simultaneous demand for HBM, server DRAM and enterprise SSDs, according to a Sept. 7 report from KB Securities.
Huawei has unveiled the Kirin 9050 Pro in its new Mate XT 2 tri-fold smartphone, marking the commercial debut of the LogicFolding architecture behind its Tau Scaling Law and Huawei's first new high-performance Kirin chip introduced at a flagship launch in six years.
India's most senior semiconductor policymakers came to Taipei with an argument aimed squarely at the Taiwanese supply chain: the country's chip program is meant to add redundancy to an over-concentrated global industry, not to substitute imports behind a wall. For Taiwanese materials, gas, equipment and packaging firms, that reframes India from a distant end market into a second production base their own customers are already asking them to staff.
The AI industry's release calendar has compressed to the point where a single week can carry five frontier or near-frontier launches, but the acceleration is not a sign of confidence. It is a defensive reflex in a market where a rival's announcement can bury your own, where Chinese labs have closed most of the quality gap at a fraction of the price, and where neither the American nor the Chinese side of the race expects to earn back its spending for years.
By the final afternoon of K-Safety Expo 2026, after three days of threading my way through BEXCO's sprawling exhibition halls in Busan, one impression had become difficult to ignore: AI was no longer sitting beside the safety industry as an adjacent technology. It was increasingly becoming part of safety's definition.
Japan's NEC has halted development of gate-based quantum-computer hardware, marking a strategic retreat from a field the company helped pioneer, while continuing to invest in quantum annealing and quantum-inspired computing services.
DeepSeek is reportedly planning to purchase 160,000 Huawei chips for its large 1 GW data center currently under construction in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. This would make it among the largest clusters of Huawei chips deployed to date, as the Chinese authorities attempt to wean the country off Nvidia chips, but still struggle with insufficient domestic manufacturing capacity.
China's power battery industry has reported robust growth through the first seven months of 2026, driven by rising demand across both electric vehicles and stationary energy storage applications. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China (MIIT), cumulative sales of power batteries reached 790.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) between January and July, representing a 37.1% year-over-year increase.
As global net-zero efforts accelerate, major technology companies are setting increasingly ambitious renewable energy targets. TSMC has pledged to reach RE60 by 2030 and RE100 by 2040.
The same AI boom that is filling handsets with new features is draining the memory supply that makes cheap phones possible—and in India, the world's second-largest smartphone market, buyers are paying for both. Xiaomi India's leadership told HT Tech that prices will keep climbing through the second half of 2026 as the global chip shortage persists, even as the company doubles down on AI features it says should be felt rather than seen.
Taiwanese companies are only at the start of a broader overseas investment cycle, as Washington signals possible new semiconductor tariffs and Taipei moves to deepen industrial links with Europe, Japan, and ASEAN. Officials say the island's chipmakers are responding to pressure from the US, while also broadening their global strategy to reduce risk and strengthen supply chains.
