If the project under discussion goes ahead, it would be the first time Japan's US$550 billion tariff-linked investment pledge is directed toward chip manufacturing rather than the energy and industrial-materials projects announced so far — and the clearest sign yet that the two countries that once dominated chipmaking could rebuild some of that capacity jointly.

Gallium nitride (GaN) is emerging as a key power semiconductor for AI data centers, where rising rack power and the shift toward higher-voltage architectures are forcing suppliers to improve efficiency and power density. But despite rapidly expanding orders and falling costs, industry researchers say GaN remains at an early stage of adoption and is unlikely to displace silicon broadly for another two to three years.

Huawei is extending its AI infrastructure strategy beyond individual accelerators and storage systems, unveiling an Agentic supercluster architecture designed to scale Ascend computing to as many as 1 million accelerator cards through UnifiedBus.

Chinese AI developer Z.ai has raised its 2026 year-end annual recurring revenue (ARR) target by 25% to US$3 billion after fresh financing eased the computing bottleneck that had constrained growth earlier this year.

As Nvidia gradually retreats from China's high-end AI accelerator market amid strict US export controls, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is deepening its regional AI strategy. Rather than relying solely on traditional CPU and GPU sales, AMD is shifting its focus toward edge AI platforms, AI PCs, agent computers, local developer communities, and university partnerships.

Japanese autonomous driving developer Tier IV is developing an AI chip and will release its chip design and related toolchain as open source, allowing semiconductor manufacturers to use them to develop autonomous driving chips. The company aims to break Nvidia's dominant position in the autonomous driving chip market.

Huawei expects autonomous AI agents to become the dominant source of AI traffic over the next decade, creating a sharp increase in demand for computing, networking, storage and power infrastructure.

ByteDance has completed a US$290 million funding round for Anew Labs, its AI drug-discovery business spun off from the Chinese technology group, valuing the company at US$1.5 billion, according to Reuters. ByteDance will retain a 56% stake following the fundraising.