Qualcomm's weakening smartphone business is accelerating its transformation into an AI infrastructure supplier, with custom accelerators, server CPUs, and optical connectivity emerging as growth priorities. Following a 26% annual decline in handset chip revenue in fiscal 4Q26, the US chipmaker is targeting US$5 billion in data center revenue in fiscal 2027 and US$15 billion by fiscal 2029. The question is whether these businesses can scale quickly enough to offset pressures in its traditional market.

AI data centers are accelerating demand for high-speed optical communications, extending competition in the optical transceiver market beyond chips and module manufacturing to critical upstream materials. Indium phosphide (InP), a key substrate for high-speed optical lasers and optoelectronic devices, is increasingly sought after as 800G and 1.6T transceivers gain traction. With capacity expansion requiring time and product qualification presenting technical hurdles, securing InP wafer supplies has become a strategic priority for optical communications companies.

ASML and TSMC announced plans in September 2026, ahead of the SPIE BACUS symposium, to advance high-numerical-aperture extreme ultraviolet (High NA EUV) lithography by replacing the decades-old 6-inch photomask format with larger 12-inch masks. TSMC plans to introduce High NA EUV into advanced-node volume production from 2030, establish a 12-inch mask pilot line and begin production-line and ecosystem qualification by 2031, and achieve full readiness for 12-inch-mask High NA EUV systems supporting advanced-node manufacturing by 2033.

Modern cryptography relies heavily on trapdoor one-way functions: mathematical operations that are easy to perform but difficult to reverse without additional information. Quantum computing and advances in artificial intelligence, however, are raising questions about how long this protection can last.

Samsung Electronics' contract chipmaking business spent years struggling to fill its factories. On its third-quarter earnings call, the company said that by 2027, demand will exceed capacity across all its nodes below 8nm, which it expects to run at over 100% utilization.

High-profile breaches caused by AI agents from frontier labs are leading to public alarm over what AI means for the future of cybersecurity. However, Taivo Pungas, chief intelligence officer of agentic procurement platform Pactum, said that AI development is becoming a cybersecurity boon and could even be a boost for software as a service (SaaS) products.

The outlook for AI neocloud providers has sparked a clash between Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who warned that more than 200 such companies could face large-scale failures or consolidation, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who said during an interview at the GTC Berlin conference that demand for neocloud services has exceeded expectations and current funding shortages will eventually be resolved.

Arm is expanding its business model from licensing Neoverse core IP and compute subsystem (CSS) technologies to selling finished server CPUs for artificial general intelligence (AGI) applications. Meta is a co-developer and primary customer, while OpenAI also plans to adopt the products. Customers can purchase processors directly, reducing the time and cost required to develop and deploy their own chips, while Arm can increase its chip sales revenue.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology was previously used mainly in military and aerospace applications, where costs were extremely high. Now, as high-frequency communications and non-terrestrial network (NTN) technologies gain momentum, new opportunities are opening up across the communications industry.

The Biological Computing Co. (TBC), a San Francisco startup that grows living neurons in its lab to find ways to make AI models more efficient, launched its first publicly available product on October 30: mischief 1, an image-to-video model the company says generates video five times faster than the open-weight model it is built on. The release moves TBC's technology from an early-access program to self-serve developer marketplaces and puts a price on the company's argument that biology can be a source of AI efficiency distinct from the standard optimization toolkit.

Marvell is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Lumentum, a major laser supplier, in a deal that could be announced as early as next week if no other technology giant intervenes. Based on Lumentum's current market capitalization of approximately US$83 billion, the transaction would be Marvell's largest acquisition ever.

Oracle will offer cloud services powered by Cerebras' AI computing systems in its cloud data centers starting in 2027, giving the wafer-scale chipmaker another major cloud customer. Although the companies did not disclose Oracle's planned Cerebras hardware purchases, the deal highlights the shift toward diversified AI compute resources as inference demand accelerates.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Kazakhstan highlights a widening contest over AI computing capacity, as Europe seeks alternatives to infrastructure concentrated in the US and Asia. Kazakhstan, with 21 million people, is developing data centers and pursuing Nvidia partnerships that could position it as a supplier to Europe.

China's luxury car market is undergoing a major brand reshuffle. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Porsche all recorded significant sales or delivery declines in China in the third quarter of 2026, while domestic automakers continued moving upmarket with new energy vehicles (NEVs), smart cockpits, and driver-assistance technology.

Google is now supplying its tensor processing units (TPUs) to companies it competes with, including Anthropic and Apple. On Alphabet's third-quarter earnings call, management gave two reasons: outside customers keep the chips competitive, and outside volume lowers the cost of every chip Google uses itself. However, it would not say how much money the business makes.