Huawei and Qualcomm announced on Oct. 5 that they had signed a multi-year patent licensing agreement covering technologies including 5G, computing, AI and networking.

LG Electronics' third-quarter results show a company whose mature businesses are generating steady cash, but not enough to meet raised expectations. The company says it will channel earnings from appliances and auto parts into AI data center cooling and robotics.

AMD CEO Lisa Su moved from supply-chain talks in Taiwan to South Korea this week, broadening the chipmaker's Asia push from efforts to secure more CPU, GPU and advanced-wafer capacity to building an open computing ecosystem around its processors, Korean AI accelerators and software.

Rising memory prices are already weighing on 2026 smartphone and notebook shipments, and sustained AI infrastructure investments are expected to keep quotes climbing into 2027. To counter softer buying interest as retail prices rise, hardware vendors like Samsung are pivoting to fresh strategies. Alongside cost controls and broader product line-ups, companies are increasingly prioritizing software differentiation, AI integration, post-purchase services, and aggressive promotion of previous-generation (N-1) models.

Chinese notebook original design manufacturers (ODMs) are rapidly catching up, with supply chain sources saying Huaqin and Luxshare have won major orders from HP and Dell, sending shock waves through Taiwan's supply chain and threatening the future position of Taiwanese ODMs. Industry sources said the impact extends beyond 4-5 ODMs and will also hit more than 100 component suppliers.

As AI agents integrate into enterprise operations, companies scaling deployment face rising challenges around runaway costs, permission controls, and cybersecurity governance. CloudMile founder and chairman Spencer Liu noted that many firms using AI still lack clarity on cost allocation or what data agents have accessed.

Taiwan-Asia Semiconductor Corporation (TASC) expects a stronger second half of 2026 as new Apple Watch demand lifts sensor orders. The company said weak consumer electronics demand has not materially affected its business, with smartwatch and earphone orders arriving faster than expected. More sensors per device and seasonal demand should lift fourth-quarter performance above the third, making the second half clearly stronger than the first.

A string of AI server smuggling prosecutions is showing that following US export-control rules to the letter has not stopped advanced Nvidia hardware from reaching China. The weak point lies less in the chips themselves than in the multi-layered server supply chain that carries them, where each participant checks its own slice, and no one owns the final destination.

Once the global leader in robot vacuums, iRobot is trying to regain ground after bankruptcy restructuring and its takeover by contract manufacturer Shenzhen Picea Robotics. The global home-cleaning robot market has since become increasingly dominated by Chinese vendors, leaving iRobot with a smaller share and a need to accelerate innovation.

The global artificial intelligence landscape is witnessing an accelerating divide. While Silicon Valley grapples with escalating safety debates and regulatory friction, Chinese tech developers are rapidly deploying lightweight models and domestic chips. Simultaneously, European players are stepping up to claim AI sovereignty through open-weight models designed for critical enterprise infrastructure.

Chinese AI company Z.ai is expanding its overseas commercialisation through Amazon Bedrock, with AWS adding GLM-5.3 on October 6 and sharing revenue with Z.ai based on model usage.