Apple's spatial computing ambitions are narrowing rather than disappearing, but the direction is increasingly clear: fewer people are building VR headsets, and more are building AI-driven smart glasses.

Optical communications will likely enter AI server racks in 2028, DIGITIMES analyst Joyce Chen said on August 20 at a semiconductor industry forum in Taipei, as rising AI cluster scale drives demand for faster data transfer, lower latency, and higher-bandwidth interconnects.

HP Korea is sharpening its localized AI strategy through a partnership with large language model (LLM) startup Upstage, and has already moved into AI transformation (AX), eyeing demand from document-heavy industries such as healthcare and finance. Built around high-performance AI workstations, the company is offering an end-to-end pipeline from scanning and inference to printing, helping HP break out of its image as only a PC supplier in the South Korean market.

Chinese electronics manufacturer Goertek reported higher revenue and profit for the first half of 2026, supported by growth in its smart acoustic products and continued investment in R&D.

Ode with Anthropic, an Anthropic venture arm, said it has acquired Casper Studios, a move that expands its enterprise artificial intelligence services as companies worldwide look for practical ways to deploy AI inside existing workflows. The deal underscores growing demand for partners that can turn experimentation into measurable business gains across global operations.

A shift to 800VDC power architectures in next-generation AI data centers is gathering pace, with implications for GPU planning, power semiconductor demand, and rack design. Many vendors are preparing related products for 2026, as rising AI workloads push power systems toward a new scale. The trend may accelerate adoption across gallium nitride (GaN), silicon carbide (SiC), and Vertical Power Delivery (VPD) technologies.

Taiwan's export orders climbed by US$207.3 billion, or 52.5%, in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to data released on August 20 by the Department of Statistics (DOS) under Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). From January to July 2026, orders placed by the US reached US$235.7 billion, accounting for 39.1% of the total US$602 billion in orders, rising more than 70% year over year and making the US Taiwan's largest buyer.

Stripe is in acquisition talks to buy AI startup OpenRouter for more than US$7 billion, according to reporting by Bloomberg and Axios. The price would be more than five times the US$1.3 billion valuation OpenRouter reached in a funding round in May 2026.

Alibaba Group's June quarter is the clearest statement yet that the company now runs as an AI infrastructure business with an e-commerce cash engine attached, rather than the other way around. Revenue rose 9% year-over-year to CNY268.95 billion (US$39.64 billion), but the composition of that growth, and the cost of buying it, matter more than the headline.

Unitree Technology's soaring debut underscored investor enthusiasm for humanoid robots, but the company's founder said the industry still faces key limits before machines can perform everyday work in homes and factories.

Alibaba is signaling that its most capital-intensive bet yet — a three-year, CNY380 billion (US$56.33 billion) buildout of AI compute — is starting to compound into a self-reinforcing growth cycle, even as the near-term cost of that buildout shows up in a sharp swing in capital spending and a steep drop in group profitability.