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Jul 14
Google reportedly ramps up TPU push to court Nvidia-backed cloud providers

Google is intensifying its effort to expand adoption of its in-house Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), taking direct aim at Nvidia's dominance in AI infrastructure by courting "neocloud" providers that have traditionally built their businesses around Nvidia GPUs.

AI-driven demand for memory, power management chips, and advanced packaging has continued to tighten supply and demand in the foundry market. Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC) reported second quarter 2026 revenue of NT$17.291 billion (approx. US$537.8 million), up 27% quarter-over-quarter and 53% year-over-year, while gross margin jumped to 28%, up 18pp from the first quarter; operating margin reached 21%, turning positive from the same period in 2025, and net profit after tax came to NT$3.291 billion, an EPS of NT$0.76.

Apple's MacBook Neo is selling briskly, lifting the company's notebook brand shipments by more than 10% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, but supply shortages are emerging as a major risk. Supply-chain sources had expected MacBook Neo shipments to reach 10 million units in 2026, but a key component bottleneck could weigh on sales.

Formosa Plastics Group said it will keep its annual salary increase tradition in 2026, approving an overall pay raise of 4.5% through its management center. The move comes as the Taiwanese industrial conglomerate continues a shift toward higher-value products, business transformation and new-energy investment while managing recent pressure from geopolitics, oversupply, oil price swings and foreign exchange losses.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to attend an event in Tokyo's Akihabara district on July 15, marking the 30th anniversary of the partnership between Nvidia GeForce Japan and gaming company Sega. The appearance drawing the most attention will be Huang's reunion with former Sega president Shoichiro Irimajiri, turning the brief visit into what many have described as a journey of gratitude.
Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment are on pace to reach an unprecedented US$165.9 billion in 2026, a 23.2% jump from the previous year, according to industry association SEMI's mid-year forecast. This growth is expected to continue in the coming years as AI reshapes the chip industry's investment landscape.

OpenAI's first consumer device is shaping up as a direct bid for the center of the home, a move that would pit the ChatGPT maker against Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google just as it prepares to go public — and while it fights an Apple lawsuit that could delay the launch.

The European Commission has exempted a swathe of connected consumer and industrial products from its rule requiring that portable batteries be removable and replaceable by users. This change removes one of the clearest regulatory obstacles to selling devices such as Meta's smart glasses in the bloc.

After an eight-day trip through Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, Linux Foundation Global AI CTO Matt White published a detailed account of his trip titled "Eight Days in China: What I Learned from AI Labs, Robotics Startups, and Academia." He has since elaborated on those observations in subsequent interviews.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between India and the UK came into force on July 15, 2026. While the immediate headlines belong to cheaper Scotch and luxury cars, the deal's more consequential legacy may be structural: it is the first Indian trade treaty to write labour, environment, gender, and anti-corruption obligations directly into the treaty text—a shift trade watchers describe as the "source code" for the country's future agreements.

Taiwanese outbound investment rose more than 50% over the past five years, with manufacturers directing a growing share of capital toward the United States and ASEAN as global supply chains underwent rapid restructuring.
On July 14, 2026, the White House launched Gold Eagle, a federal cybersecurity clearinghouse meant to coordinate how software vulnerabilities are detected and patched across open-source code and critical infrastructure using artificial intelligence (AI). The central question analysts are already raising is not whether the initiative can find more flaws, but whether it can actually get them fixed.