ByteDance is in talks to buy AI chips from Shanghai-based Iluvatar CoreX and is also considering using Baidu's Kunlunxin chips, as the TikTok parent expands its domestic chip options amid rising inference demand from its AI chatbot Doubao.

TSMC is accelerating its advanced packaging roadmap for AI chips, expanding CoWoS capacity while publicly disclosing new progress in glass substrate technology. The company is also signaling that next-generation packaging competition is shifting from CoWoS toward CoPoS as it builds out a fuller ecosystem ahead of rivals.

The semiconductor supply chain is facing another raw material shock — this time from tungsten hexafluoride, or WF6, a specialty gas used in chip manufacturing. Planned production adjustments or exits by some Japanese suppliers in the second half of 2026 have intensified concerns over tighter global supply, sending prices sharply higher and raising the risk of disruption into 2027.

Japan's Rapidus has signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK Semiconductor Centre, a government-backed body established in 2025 to support Britain's semiconductor ecosystem, marking a step toward cooperation on future semiconductor manufacturing and potential customer development in the UK, according to Rapidus and reports from Nikkei, Bloomberg, and Reuters.

Physical AI is emerging as a new frontier of model development. Any model, however, is only as good as the data used to train it. Because of this, Japanese startup APTO is launching a physical AI infrastructure lab to help plug the data gap needed to create vision-language-action (VLA) models, with a focus on imitation learning.

Samsung Electronics' foundry division chief told employees on June 12 that a return to profitability in the contract chipmaking business looks difficult next year, with 2028 emerging as a more likely timeline, Yonhap, ZDNet Korea, and Chosun reported.

South Korea's semiconductor equipment supply chain saw a material pickup in orders in the first half of 2026 as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accelerated investment in advanced DRAM and high-bandwidth memory (HBM4), generating demand across front-end tools, advanced packaging, and inspection equipment. The shift toward high-end process and packaging capabilities for AI memory has driven new contracts and revenue rebounds for domestic suppliers, according to executives and industry reporting.

European luxury automakers are pulling back from China's plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) market after Beijing tightened eligibility requirements for new-energy vehicle incentives starting in 2026. The policy raised the minimum all-electric range for tax incentives from 43 kilometers to 100 kilometers. The threshold sidelined many European PHEV models and prompted a shift in market strategy, according to executives and foreign media reports.