The Hurun Research Institute's 2026 Hurun China Rich List shows ByteDance founder Yiming Zhang reclaiming the title of China's richest person with CNY670 billion (US$99.7 billion), while DeepSeek founder Wenfeng Liang ranked seventh in his debut appearance with CNY280 billion, highlighting AI's growing impact on Chinese entrepreneurs' fortunes.

US and Taiwanese PC makers are shifting some production from Southeast Asia back to China and partnering with additional Chinese contract manufacturers as surging memory and storage costs squeeze margins, reversing part of the industry's previous push to diversify supply chains away from China.

SK Hynix is looking beyond its position as a leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), using venture investments to gain a greater say in how next-generation AI infrastructure is designed.

SK Hynix is reassessing how to finance the US manufacturing expansion of its NAND flash subsidiary Solidigm after shelving a potential initial public offering (IPO), as the South Korean memory maker prepares for higher capital spending in 2027 while committing approximately KRW100 trillion to shareholder returns this year.

Micron Technology is heading to South Korea to recruit engineers for its Taiwan operations, with interviews scheduled in Seoul in late November, as a bonus dispute at its Taoyuan plant remains unresolved. The company and the Taoyuan union held a second round of negotiations on October 27 without reaching an agreement, and a third round has been tentatively set for November 6. At the same time, Micron is advancing a global compensation overhaul, reflecting how profit sharing and competition for technical talent have become a focus for the industry as AI memory demand expands.

Major package substrate makers, including Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco), are concentrating capital spending on large, high-layer-count ABF substrates, while capacity expansion for BT substrates used in memory packaging remains limited. With BT substrate supply tightening and demand for low-power SOCAMM memory modules rising, South Korea's Simmtech could benefit from its business in both memory package substrates and module PCBs.

Chinese AI chipmaker Cambricon Technologies reported a 131.49% increase in net profit attributable to shareholders for the first nine months of 2026, while revenue more than doubled. Third-quarter net profit rose nearly 150% from a year earlier.

South Korean memory module substrate maker TLB has begun developing substrates for SOCAMM3, a next-generation low-power memory module for AI servers, with two major memory customers at home and abroad, according to sources. The company expects SOCAMM3 to enter mass production in 2028 as it expands SOCAMM2 production and builds capacity to retain its position in the high-end memory module substrate market.

Samsung Electronics' Device eXperience (DX) division has established its first overseas research and development site for manufacturing technology in Suzhou, China, leveraging the city's robotics and automation ecosystem to develop technologies for Samsung's global factories.

China's CXMT has reportedly declined Apple's inquiry about purchasing DRAM, prioritizing supply to domestic customers instead. As global memory supplies tighten and prices rise, the Chinese memory maker's capacity allocation and companies' efforts to secure supply have drawn attention.

South Korean memory chip designer Jeju Semiconductor is struggling to secure enough wafer capacity from Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC), limiting its sales growth as strong memory demand drives up prices and manufacturing costs.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are targeting the second quarter of 2027 to begin volume shipments of eight-layer HBM4 memory to Nvidia, ZDNet Korea reported on October 26, as the AI chipmaker reassesses its memory strategy for next-generation Rubin Ultra accelerators.

Fine M-Tec has rejected claims that components it supplied contributed to reported display damage in Apple's first foldable iPhone, saying the issue involves multiple components and precision mechanisms. The dispute could affect perceptions of the South Korean supplier even as analysts forecast growth from expanding foldable device demand ahead.

Japan plans to provide about JPY100 billion (US$634.1 million) over four years to support mass production of next-generation perovskite solar cells, seeking to establish a domestic manufacturing base before China further widens its lead in the emerging technology, according to Nikkei Asia.

HCLTech and Japan's Rapidus have inaugurated development centers in Bengaluru and Hubli, India, expanding their semiconductor engineering collaboration across Asia. The facilities will support advanced chip work, while a planned talent pipeline could connect Indian engineers with Rapidus' manufacturing ambitions in Japan, highlighting the cross-border partnerships shaping semiconductor supply chains.