Baidu is reportedly preparing its biggest workforce reduction in seven years, trimming staff across key divisions and reshaping its AI model unit by the end of 2025. The overhaul follows a sharp slowdown in advertising sales and rising pressure to shift spending to growth areas.
To enhance artificial intelligence (AI) performance, Meta and Nvidia are advancing plans to embed GPU compute cores directly into the base die of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). This innovation blurs the lines between memory and system semiconductors, presenting new opportunities and challenges for South Korea's semiconductor industry.
Google's push to expand its Tensor Processing Unit platform is drawing renewed attention across the AI chip sector, prompting debate over whether the company intends to challenge Nvidia's dominance or secure a strong position as the market's second supplier. Industry insiders say Google's system-level strategy, which emphasizes full-stack integration over chip-only sales, could reshape competition for application-specific integrated circuit developers.
Raymond Huang, chairman of water pump leader Walrus Pump, stated that 2026 will see four main growth drivers: this includes the launch of the new Kaohsiung Luzhu Global Factory, industrial water pumps entering the supply chains of major US and Japanese machine tool makers, shipments of server-grade technology pumps, and the launch of newly developed submersible pumps. The company is very optimistic about its 2026 business outlook.
Daikin Industries said at a 27 November briefing in Osaka that soaring server-cooling demand from the rapid uptake of generative AI has led the company to target over JPY300 billion (approx. US$2 billion) in North American data-center cooling revenue in fiscal 2030, nearly triple its JPY100 billion tally in fiscal 2025.
Google's expanding Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) strategy is emerging as a serious challenge to Nvidia's long-running dominance in AI accelerators, particularly after a report from The Information revealed that Meta is in talks to begin using Google TPUs in its data centers in 2027 under a potential multibillion-dollar agreement.
At its investor conference on November 27, 2025, Gigastorage Corporation shared details regarding its strategic shift from its early photovoltaic (PV) business toward AI computing, cooling, and personal health micro-sensing. In the HPC and AI fields, Gigastorage has invested in direct forming technology (DFT). This technique leverages the high hardness of diamond abrasives to directly machine deep, tall two-dimensional fin structures onto heat-dissipating materials, improving thermal resistance performance by approximately 20%. It overcomes the technical bottlenecks of traditional cooling solutions, allowing fins to be directly integrated into GPU modules while precisely controlling the base thickness below 0.2mm, targeting top-tier applications such as HPC and vertical AI cooling.
The US Genesis Mission, a major AI infrastructure project, has boosted Taiwan's AI chip supply chain, as all global AI inference chips come from Taiwanese firms. With 76% of TSMC's revenue from the US, improved US-China relations and a lifted Chinese import ban could further surge Taiwan's AI orders.
Swancor Advanced Materials, the STAR Market–listed maker of high-performance composites and corrosion-resistant materials, has entered a new phase after naming Peng Zhihui — the Bilibili tech star "Zhi Hui Jun" — as chairman. All nine directors unanimously approved the move at the board's first meeting on November 25, 2024, in compliance with Company Law and STAR Market rules, according to ICsmart and 36Kr.
Recent market rumors indicate that Meta is negotiating to deploy Google's seventh-generation TPU "Ironwood" in its data centers by 2027, with procurement potentially reaching tens of billions of US dollars. This move signals confidence that Google will become a leading ASIC chip supplier, challenging Nvidia's dominance and securing the second spot in the AI accelerator market.
Acer Group subsidiary Highpoint Service Network (HSN) is charting its next phase of expansion after recording three consecutive years of double-digit growth, driven by a "multi-country, multi-product, multi-brand" strategy. Chairman Andrew Hou said the company is evaluating market entry into India or China and aims to maintain double-digit growth through 2026.
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