China's WG Tech has reportedly begun the second phase of investment in its through-glass via (TGV) glass substrate production line, with total future capacity projected to reach 1 million square meters a year. Analysts say Chinese makers have moved ahead of South Korean rivals by building production lines first, then accelerating product output and customer validation, giving China an early lead in glass substrate commercialization.
Japan's Kyushu Semiconductor Industry Exhibition, known as K-Semi, grew 36% at this year's edition in Fukuoka, held from September 30 to October 1, 2026, as chip makers expanded their presence in Kyushu. The event also added a semiconductor design zone for the first time and was held alongside the debut Kyushu Next-Generation Energy Exhibition, or K-Ene.
Huawei is increasingly framing its semiconductor strategy around a simple constraint: if advanced process nodes remain limited, more performance must come from architecture, interconnect and system-level efficiency.
Chinese semiconductor manufacturers have stockpiled hundreds of immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems worth billions of dollars in recent years, prompting a Washington think tank to call for tighter export controls on equipment that could still support advanced chip production.
China's National Day holidays have opened one of the fourth quarter's most important promotional windows for consumer electronics. For smartphones, the timing is especially significant: Apple, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Honor have all launched new models since September, while Huawei introduced its Mate 90 series on October 1.
With South Korea preparing for the fifth launch of its Nuri rocket, the country's space ambitions took center stage at AEROTEC 2026, the second International Aerospace Technology Exhibition held recently in Changwon, a major hub for South Korea's aerospace industry.
DeepSeek has released a new version of DeepSeek Harness, adding an experimental compatibility layer for Anthropic's Claude Code Mods and sharpening its broader effort to build an open, highly extensible software layer for AI agents.
As South Korea prepares for the fifth launch of its Nuri rocket, small and medium-sized enterprises are taking on increasingly important roles in the country's space supply chain alongside major aerospace companies such as Hanwha Aerospace.
South Korea's Hyundai Rotem is accelerating its expansion into aerospace propulsion systems, showcasing 10-ton- and 35-ton-class methane rocket engines under development at AEROTEC 2026 as it targets growing demand for reusable launch vehicles.
In a major effort to rebuild its national semiconductor industry, Japanese contract chipmaker Rapidus plans to partner with 17 domestic and international design firms to broaden its potential customer base and help clients develop proprietary silicon. Established in 2022 to spearhead Japan's return to cutting-edge manufacturing, Rapidus is targeting the commercial production of advanced 2-nanometer logic chips by the second half of fiscal 2027.
Samsung Display (SDC) and LG Display (LGD) are calling on the South Korean government to strengthen tax incentives for OLED investment and research as intensifying competition from Chinese panel makers raises pressure to maintain technological leadership and upgrade production capacity.
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) showcased its next-generation medium-sized satellites and compact synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites at AEROTEC 2026 in Changwon, highlighting an expanding space strategy that increasingly extends from Earth observation into communications.
Anthropic has warned that GLM-5.3, the latest model from Chinese AI startup Z.ai, approached Claude Mythos Preview on an exploit-development benchmark but lacks sufficient safety protections, raising concerns that malicious actors could use it for cyberattacks.
South Korea's government is pushing to join the "global top three AI powers," but the AI semiconductor development program led by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources (MOTIR) had spent nothing by the end of August 2026. The core AI semiconductor budget for 2026 totaled KRW166.554 billion (about US$119 million), according to Edaily and Newdaily, yet cumulative execution remained at KRW0.
Japan plans to detail the first five years of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's more than JPY370 trillion (US$2.3 trillion) 14-year investment initiative, which is designed to spur investment in AI and other strategic sectors, according to documents submitted Thursday, October 1, to Japan's Growth Strategy Council.
