AI server demand is pushing semiconductor packaging into a new growth cycle, but the market remains heavily concentrated among a small group of global outsourced semiconductor assembly and test leaders and Taiwanese and Chinese companies, sharpening the challenge for South Korea's back-end chip industry
Intel's reported preliminary agreement to manufacture some chips for Apple is putting new pressure on Samsung Electronics, as the US chipmaker gains momentum with major technology customers and leans on Washington's support to revive its foundry business
China's Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies has unveiled what it claims is the world's largest optical fiber preform, highlighting China's accelerating push to strengthen its position in AI-driven optical networking and high-speed data infrastructure
Against a backdrop of persistently high tensions between the US and China, the upcoming Trump-Xi summit is being closely watched not only for its implications for trade, technology controls, and geopolitics, but also as a key signal of how both sides are reassessing the remaining areas where cooperation may still be possible
The global race for AI computing power continues to intensify, beyond ongoing GPU shortages. CPUs, long viewed as secondary components in servers, are once again becoming critical parts of data center infrastructure due to the rapid rise of AI inference and AI agent applications
