DIGITIMES observed that as AI systems continued to scale, interconnect requirements inside AI data centers had expanded from chips, packages, and boards to racks, clusters, and eventually inter-data-center connections.
China's leading DRAM maker CXMT has gone from years of accumulated losses to one of the most profitable companies on the mainland market, propelled by an extraordinary memory upcycle. The more consequential question is what it does with the windfall.
China's leading DRAM maker CXMT has reportedly begun small-volume production of HBM3E, a step that could ease one of the most important hardware constraints on China's domestic AI chip industry. US export controls have restricted Chinese access to advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM), making local supply increasingly critical to scaling homegrown AI processors.
When DeepSeek burst onto the scene in early 2025, it wiped nearly US$600 billion from Nvidia's market value in a single day. By the summer of 2026, Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 had triggered another wave of anxiety, sharpening divisions in Silicon Valley over the growing strength of China's open models.
When John Ternus becomes chief executive on September 1, the company he inherits will be measured on a scorecard Tim Cook wrote, not the one Steve Jobs left behind. Fifteen years of accounts show two different machines wearing the same logo: Jobs ran a company that accelerated, Cook ran one that compounded. The distinction matters for Ternus, because the growth rates Cook normalized are the ones he now has to beat.
The 2026 Global Automotive and Technology Expo (GATE 2026) closed on August 28 at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) in Kuala Lumpur. It highlighted Malaysia's contradictory but pragmatic stance toward China in the auto sector. Over the three-day event, the main story for ASEAN's auto industry was not a new car or new technology. It was Malaysia's balancing act around the "China factor."
As global net-zero efforts intensify, governments and major technology companies are investing in emerging nuclear technologies to meet the huge electricity demand from AI data centers and the semiconductor industry. Because nuclear power offers zero-carbon emissions, small modular reactors (SMRs) are drawing growing attention as a potential new power solution in the AI era.
China's second humanoid robot games, held in Beijing from August 22 to August 26, 2026, sent videos and clips racing across social media and underscored how fast humanoid robotics is advancing. For Taiwan, the spectacle also highlighted both the promise and the risks of robots in policing, firefighting, and even warfare.
For the past two years, China's AI companies have competed on a single axis: whose model performs best. That contest is starting to give way to a harder one — whether those models can actually run, at scale, on chips made in China, as US restrictions on advanced AI chip exports raise the stakes of that question.
Nvidia reported revenue of US$96.221 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, more than doubling from a year earlier and underscoring the global rush to build AI infrastructure and expand computing power. The results also signal a continued boost for Taiwan's suppliers as hyperscalers shift purchases from Blackwell to Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin.
Nvidia has made a point of it in three consecutive earnings decks: year-on-year growth has accelerated for four straight quarters, which the company calls unprecedented at its scale. It's true. But split the data center business into its two halves, and the acceleration has a single source, and it isn't the customers everyone assumes.
Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) has officially kicked off its STAR Market IPO process. In the first quarter of 2026, China's largest 3D NAND Flash manufacturer delivered an impressive performance, generating CNY47.042 billion (approx. US$7 billion) in revenue and CNY33.379 billion (approx. US$5 billion) in net profit attributable to the parent company. Remarkably, its profit in a single quarter eclipsed its cumulative net earnings from prior years. This has turned YMTC's CNY33 billion (approx. US$4.9 billion) fundraising plan into one of the most anticipated semiconductor IPO in China since ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).
Nvidia's data center business now splits almost evenly between hyperscalers and everyone else — US$48.7 billion against US$40.3 billion in the July quarter. The obvious reading is that the customer base is broadening. The sequence says something more specific.
Smartwatch shipments are expected to continue rising faster than broader IT hardware in 2026, even as smartphones and notebook PCs see weaker growth due to higher memory costs. For global consumers, the shift signals that wearables are becoming a more essential, health-focused purchase, while top brands fight for share.
