At the close of his keynote address at the Humanoids Summit in Tokyo, Hiroshi Ishiguro — one of the pioneers of humanoid robotics — offered a candid assessment of the industry's progress: despite decades of investment and research, Japan has yet to produce a truly transformative, mass-market application for robotics

Kioxia is evaluating the construction of a new NAND flash manufacturing facility at its Kitakami site in Iwate Prefecture, aiming for production to begin after 2029-2030 as the company prepares for sustained growth in AI-driven storage demand

Huawei's recently proposed Tau Law has drawn attention across the semiconductor industry, with the company arguing that chip performance can be improved by reducing the internal signal transmission time constant, known as τ, through multi-layer optimization across devices, circuits, architectures, systems, and algorithms

SK Group is reportedly placing AI and semiconductors at the center of its next round of business restructuring, prompting a fresh internal review of the strategic value of SK Siltron, a major global silicon wafer maker. The planned sale of SK Siltron, once seen as a move to improve SK Group's financial structure, now faces uncertainty as the group reconsiders whether to push ahead with the deal

The global NAND flash memory market reached a record US$46 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, driven by AI infrastructure demand, higher enterprise SSD shipments, and rising NAND prices, according to Counterpoint Research

A six-year battery partnership that once symbolized cross-border cooperation between China and South Korea is coming to an end, reflecting broader shifts in the global energy industry

At a recent product launch, BYD Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu unveiled the company's first in-house autonomous driving system-on-chip, the Xuanji A3, marking a significant milestone in BYD's push toward greater technological self-sufficiency

SK Hynix is reportedly preparing to mass-produce a new generation of 200-layer-class NAND flash memory based on floating-gate (FG) architecture at its Dalian Phase 2 facility in China, as the company seeks to strengthen its position in the fast-growing enterprise SSD (eSSD) market for AI data centers

Global Connect Show Shenzhen 2026 (GCS SZ 2026) was successfully held on June 1 in Shenzhen, China's innovation hub. Under the theme "Where Global Innovation Meets Market Opportunity," the event brought together more than 80 mainstream technology editors, key opinion leaders (KOLs), channel partners, and business associations from North America, the UK, Europe, and Southeast Asia, alongside over 100 Chinese enterprises expanding into international markets

After sharp swings in the memory spot market in April and May 2026, the industry's tight supply-demand balance has not changed. Spot prices through the end of May have recovered modestly from April, while the third-quarter memory contract price increase is expected to slow from a high base but remain firmly on an upward trend, with quarterly gains likely to stay in the double-digit 10-20% range

China moved in late 2025 to prohibit companies from citing AI adoption as a reason for layoffs, directing employers to justify any workforce reductions as unrelated to AI, executives said. The policy followed meetings between senior officials and major employers to assess AI's impact on jobs and aimed to avoid social instability as firms accelerate AI deployment

South Korean internet giant Naver said it has formed a dedicated defense AI organization to pursue military AI transformation, deploy field engineers to client sites, and develop defense-specific AI capabilities. The move was disclosed by South Korean media outlets Seoul Economic Daily and Maeil Business Newspaper, which reported that Naver Cloud has established a "Defense AX Special Task Force" to commercialize AI services for defense customers

China's economy remained under pressure in 2026 as a weak property sector, sluggish domestic demand, and slow manufacturing investment outweighed resilient trade, according to research institutes and market forecasters. Taiwan's Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics sharply raised its 2026 growth forecast for Taiwan on May 29, projecting expansion of 9.64% after revising 2025 growth to 8.76%, while S&P Global forecasted China's 2026 GDP at 4.4%, down 0.1 percentage point from its prior outlook