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Sep 4
Commentary: Apple shifts to smart vehicle software layer as Ternus era arrives
When Apple abandoned Project Titan, automotive supply chain insiders predicted the tech giant wouldn't bow out of the smart vehicle market entirely; it would simply approach the market from a different angle. Judging by its recent collaboration with Ford Motor, Apple is pivoting toward software-layer integration and vehicle systems, a move that may represent a preview of the playbook CEO John Ternus will execute.
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.
Infineon COO Alexander Gorski told DIGITIMES in an exclusive interview at Semicon Taiwan 2026 that the current global chip shortage is unlike the one during Covid-19 and will take longer to resolve. He also discussed progress on Infineon's new Dresden plant, in-house manufacturing, outsourcing, and the company's global footprint.
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.
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.
HyperVault, a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) subsidiary, has secured 264 acres in Hyderabad to build a large AI data center campus capable of reaching 1GW of capacity. The project could strengthen India's role in global artificial intelligence infrastructure, while influencing jobs, energy demand, and digital supply chains worldwide.
JM-Applied, a Taiwanese semiconductor gas equipment manufacturer and supply chain member for Micron and TSMC, said on September 4 that revenue in the first half of 2026 exceeded NT$600 million (approx. US$18.98 million), up more than 50% year-over-year. Growth was driven by the continued demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), which is driving global semiconductor expansion and boosting demand for gas supply systems and equipment at wafer fabs.
India is selling its semiconductor build-out abroad as a hedge against an over-concentrated supply chain. The officials running it are unusually candid that the hedge cannot be built without the country it hedges against. Asked at a media briefing in Taipei on 4 September how New Delhi views the role of Chinese companies in India's chip and electronics supply chain, S. Krishnan, secretary of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, opened with a line that would be politically awkward in most capitals: "We need to be realistic."
Anthropic is moving toward a potential blockbuster stock-market debut this fall, but the company's unusual governance structure could become an important issue for investors alongside its growth prospects.
Chicony Power Technology Co. said its August revenue slipped as a memory shortage hit demand for notebook power supplies. Still, stronger orders for AI server and satellite communications power signaled broader growth opportunities for global technology supply chains and future data center investment.