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Jul 3
China's Z.ai ramps up AI rivalry with Anthropic, OpenAI via GLM-5.2

Chinese AI company Z.ai, also known as Zhipu AI, is escalating its challenge to US leaders Anthropic and OpenAI with the release of its open-weight GLM-5.2 model and a new AI coding assistant, underscoring China's growing competitiveness in frontier AI.

Anthropic's reported move into in-house chip development could matter well beyond Silicon Valley if it helps lower the cost of running AI services worldwide. By prioritizing cheaper inference rather than elite performance, the startup may be signaling a more pragmatic path that could influence how global AI systems are built and priced.
Global drone demand continues to heat up, and Taiwanese manufacturers are aggressively expanding overseas. Industry players say the market's most urgent focus has shifted from price and delivery time to competition among trusted supply chains.
Chicony Power Technology said June 2026 revenue rebounded to NT$3.099 billion (US$96.52 million), topping the NT$3 billion mark as deferred orders and quarter-end pull-in demand lifted shipments. The Taiwan-based power supply maker also said the monthly result came in stronger than market expectations.
Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) reported consolidated revenue for June 2026 on July 5, with continued demand for AI servers and cloud networking products driving record performance. Revenue for June, the second quarter, and the first half of 2026 all reached record highs for the corresponding periods.

Apple's recent price increases for Mac and iPad products are rapidly spilling into the used-device market, as consumers turn to refurbished and secondhand channels to fight inflation. Data from Chinese secondhand trading platforms show that some MacBook models have risen by nearly CNY1,000 (US$147.29) within just 10 days, signaling a new round of price swings in the end-user market.

South Korean conglomerates will invest a combined KRW312 trillion (approx. US$203.6 billion) in the Yeongnam region, as the government moves to turn the country's southeast into a hub for advanced manufacturing, AI infrastructure, semiconductors, aerospace, defense, and energy.

Huawei's HarmonyOS missed one of China's largest annual government desktop operating system (OS) procurement shortlists, showing that top security certification alone is not enough for public-sector software tenders.

SEMI has warned the Trump administration that intervening in memory-chip pricing or production capacity could worsen a historic supply shortage driven by the artificial intelligence boom.

Amazon Web Services has told its server supply chain partners to raise shipment volumes for the third quarter of 2026, according to sources in the AI server supply chain.

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES stories from the week of June 29-July 5, 2026:
Alibaba has instructed employees to stop using Anthropic's Claude Code for work and remove Claude models from company computers, according to respective sources cited by Yicai, The Information, and Reuters. The move comes after concerns emerged over features in Claude Code that developers said could identify whether users were located in China or affiliated with Chinese research labs.