China's planned cut to export tax rebates for new energy vehicles could ripple through global auto markets, intensifying pressure on low-cost exporters while reshaping trade tensions with Europe. The move signals a wider rollback of industry support and may accelerate consolidation among weaker carmakers and raise prices for some overseas buyers.
NTT Data and Anthropic are in final-stage negotiations to develop a data center in Osaka, Japan, with power capacity of up to 500MW, according to Nikkei. The project would be Anthropic's first dedicated data center in Japan and one of the country's largest facilities, supporting the AI model developer's expanding infrastructure requirements.
Days before preorders open for Apple's first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan visited China to inspect its supply chain. On October 11, Khan and Foxconn rotating CEO Michael Chiang toured Foxconn's Zhengzhou technology park in Henan, focusing on iPhone Duo production, iPhone 18 Pro rear-camera modules, anodizing for exterior midframes, and chip-level surface-sputtering manufacturing.
While the rapid advancement of AI has driven steadily growing investment in large-scale infrastructure, one of its downstream effects is becoming increasingly visible in the memory sector, where supply has tightened as vendors prioritize higher-margin AI workloads.
Chinese researchers have demonstrated wafer-scale graphene quantum rectifiers that convert weak radio-frequency signals into DC electricity at room temperature without an external magnetic field. The development offers a potential route towards integrating wireless energy-harvesting devices into conventional semiconductor manufacturing processes.
SK Hynix has unveiled a new processor architecture designed to reduce power consumption and chip area in solid-state drive (SSD) controllers, expanding its efforts to address storage bottlenecks as AI data centers demand faster and more efficient access to data.
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) chairman and general manager Gerald Yin has warned of a potential AI investment bubble, cautioning that surging demand for chipmaking equipment does not shield the semiconductor industry from cyclical swings in capital expenditure.
Shenzhen-based Blue Core Computing (Shenzhen) Technology has raised nearly CNY2 billion (≈ US$298.7 million) in Series B financing to accelerate production of its RISC-V server processors with integrated AI capabilities. The funding follows the deployment of its LX500 chip in Lenovo servers, advancing China's efforts to develop alternatives to x86 and Arm architectures.
China's Hua Hong Group has signed strategic agreements with four domestic semiconductor equipment suppliers to accelerate the adoption of locally developed wafer fabrication tools, reinforcing China's chipmaking self-sufficiency efforts. The partnerships coincide with Hua Hong's ambitious 2030 market-share targets for specialty processes, including embedded flash memory, power management, and image sensors.
Japan's Omron has agreed to acquire US industrial computer (IPC) maker OnLogic and its parent company, Interlogic, at an enterprise value of US$675 million, seeking to expand its presence in Western markets and combine rugged edge computing with its factory automation and control technologies.
Huawei's cumulative global foldable smartphone shipments have exceeded 20 million units, with the company capturing more than 70% of China's foldable phone market in the first half of 2026, according to Huawei Terminal BG CTO Li Xiaolong.
After 2013, planar NAND flash memory began reaching its scaling limits at the 15–16nm process node. Capacitive coupling between the floating gates of adjacent memory cells increasingly disrupted their threshold voltages, making stored data harder to read reliably. The problem became particularly acute with the adoption of triple-level cell (TLC) NAND, which requires precise threshold-voltage detection. Changes in the charge stored by neighbouring cells could alter those voltages, making further planar scaling increasingly difficult.
South Korean electronic materials supplier YMT is accelerating its expansion into glass-substrate electroplating. The company plans to increase related capacity to roughly four times its current level by the end of 2026 to meet customer demand for through-glass via (TGV) development.
Huawei's automotive partnerships are accelerating their overseas expansion while facing growing scrutiny over product safety and brand trust. AITO is reportedly planning to enter the European market in 2027 and has initiated the European Union's Whole Vehicle Type Approval (WVTA) process.
DeepSeek is expanding its reach beyond digital chatbots into the physical world, agreeing to lead a seed financing round for Winverse AI. According to sources familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, the investment would value the Chinese robotics startup at approximately US$400 million.
