Japan's Panasonic has raised PCB material prices for the second time in 2026, broadening the increases to copper-clad laminate (CCL), pre-preg (PP) and other products, including IC substrate materials. Some items will rise by as much as 30%, with the new pricing taking effect on shipments starting September 1.

Seven listed Chinese memory-module and memory-distribution companies have filed first-half 2026 results, and the headline numbers are the largest the tier has ever reported. The more useful number is further down each statement: four of the seven reported negative operating cash flow, as inventory purchases and other working-capital demands absorbed cash even as profits rose.

China-based ICY Tech has introduced its uHBM and uLPU AI inference architectures, extending persistent MRAM computing from validation silicon into a product roadmap spanning compute-memory dies, chips, modules, 2U trays, and racks.

In the summer of 2026, the term "Chinamaxxing" has gone viral on overseas social media, reflecting a trend among young people, especially Gen Z in the West, who openly praise China and a China-style way of life. The trend is drawing foreign visitors to sites such as Xiaomi's EV superfactory, Wenchang Beach rocket launches, and Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei, where they shop for "Made in China" tech.

Samsung Electronics is targeting mass production of its LPDDR5X processing-in-memory (PIM) solution in late 2026 or early 2027, moving the technology closer to commercialization as the memory giant broadens its portfolio beyond HBM.

Hard hats and fire extinguishers will certainly have their place at K-Safety Expo 2026, but visitors arriving at BEXCO in Busan from September 2–4 may find that the modern safety industry increasingly speaks the language of AI, robots, sensors and connected infrastructure.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics disclosed on September 1 that it has concluded a single sales and supply contract worth KRW1.072 trillion (about US$778.9 million) for MLCCs, equal to 9.5% of the company's most recent annual revenue.

K-Safety Expo 2026, South Korea's leading dedicated safety-industry exhibition, will open September 2 at BEXCO in Busan, bringing together companies, government agencies, research institutions and overseas buyers across disaster prevention, industrial safety, public security, fire and rescue, and transportation and maritime safety.

BYD sold more abroad than at home in the first half of 2026, a threshold the company crossed for the first time and the clearest signal yet that the center of gravity of its car business has moved offshore. Overseas revenue reached CNY181.3 billion (US$26.88 billion), compared with CNY163.5 billion in China, according to the geographic breakdown in the interim report released on 28 August. A year earlier, the split ran the other way, by a wide margin.

BYD and Geely Auto were nearly neck and neck in vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2026, raising expectations of a close contest between China's two leading new-energy vehicle makers. The gap widened sharply in the second quarter, however, largely because BYD sold more vehicles overseas. Even so, stronger international sales have yet to reverse the company's profit decline.

Chinese large-model developer Z.ai says it can now support large-scale inference using roughly 100,000 domestically produced AI chips, while its GLM models are also moving closer to overseas cloud deployment.

Nine listed Chinese memory and memory-adjacent chip companies have now filed their first-half 2026 results, and together they measure the depth of the current DRAM and NAND upcycle more precisely than any forecast. They also show how differently each company reached its number: some rode pricing, one rode an acquisition, another rode a stake revaluation, and the largest of them simply arrived at a scale nobody in the sector previously operated at.

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.

JCET Group is sharply increasing spending as demand for artificial intelligence strains advanced packaging capacity worldwide. The Chinese chip tester and assembler said the shift could influence supply chains beyond China, as more AI and automotive chips rely on the back-end processes it is now prioritizing.