DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

SiPearl delivers first homegrown server chips for Europe's exascale supercomputer

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:18:35 GMT

SiPearl, a fabless company backed by the European Union and France, has delivered the first Rhea1 CPU samples to Bull for integration into Europe's JUPITER supercomputer, moving the European-designed processor from bring-up and validation into customer system integration while benchmarking continues.

Anthropic, OpenAI expected to start buying memory directly in 2027

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:56:49 GMT

Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to start buying memory directly from manufacturers in 2027 as model developers take greater control of chip and data-center design, potentially broadening the customer base for major memory suppliers beyond GPU and system vendors.

Vivo unveils X500 strategy to bolster premium phone push

Charlene Chen — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:49:43 GMT

Vivo unveiled its new X500 series imaging flagship phones in Shanghai on September 21, 2026, aiming to build a stronger moat in mobile imaging and break through more aggressively in the premium smartphone market. As rising memory prices force handset makers to lift retail prices, IDC expects worldwide smartphone shipments to fall 16.7% in 2026 to just over 1 billion units.

Tmytek lists on Taiwan Innovation Board, pushes 5G/6G, satellite, defense

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:31:20 GMT

Millimeter-wave communications technology and solutions provider TMY Technology (Tmytek) officially listed on Taiwan's Innovation Board on September 22 at an offering price of NT$60 (approx. US$1.90) per share. The company said its products, which span millimeter-wave R&D and validation instruments, Lego-like phased-array antennas and subsystem modules, have moved from development and verification into commercial delivery and mass production.

Changs Ascending eyes AI data center backup power, storage growth

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:20:00 GMT

Changs Ascending's board approved an operating plan on Sept. 21 to launch an energy systems integration push into the AI data center sector, betting on structurally rising demand from AI computing centers for stable power, backup power, and ESS. The lithium battery materials maker aims to extend its proven UPS, lithium iron phosphate battery and BESS integration capabilities in semiconductor sites into AI data center power infrastructure as the next growth engine for its energy business.

China prepares business delegation as Xi seeks steadier US trade ties

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:12:19 GMT

China is preparing a business delegation for President Xi Jinping's Washington visit as Beijing pursues more predictable trade relations and opportunities for companies facing US market-access barriers. The preparations combine official economic talks with a proposed corporate entourage, although the sources reviewed have not publicly confirmed the individual executives attending.

Meta's AI agent Muse tops app charts, driving AMD's market cap past US$1 trillion

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:59:05 GMT

Meta's new AI agent, Muse, has leapt to the top of app charts roughly two weeks after its release. Its popularity has helped push up chip stocks by focusing attention on the importance of CPUs for agentic AI.

Hermes Testing sees growth opportunity in AI-driven chip demand as OTC debut expands reach

Jingyue Hsiao — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:55:00 GMT

Hermes Testing Solutions began trading on the over-the-counter market on September 22, positioning itself to benefit from rising demand tied to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The semiconductor wafer testing provider is also expanding into high-speed memory SLT, advanced packaging equipment, and SiPh CPO testing.

Taiwan's automakers gear up for year-end sales, as exports emerge as new growth engine

Kevin Wang — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:50:00 GMT

Taiwan's auto dealers have continued to push out new models even amid a market downturn this year. At the same time, Taiwan's auto industry is opening a new chapter in exports.

Unitree targets humanoid robots' next bottleneck with 22-DoF Dex5-S hand

Levi Li — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:41:00 GMT

Humanoid robot makers are accelerating investment in dexterous hands as the component becomes increasingly important to fine manipulation. Chinese robotics company Unitree Robotics launched its new Dex5-S dexterous hand on September 21, raising the degrees of freedom to 22 and adopting dimensions close to those of a human hand. Prices start at CNY39,900 (approx. US$6,000), underscoring a shift from demonstration-focused products toward practical tasks and deeper integration with complete humanoid robot systems.

Acer debuts first Googlebook with 360-degree hinge

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:04:34 GMT

Acer has launched its first Googlebook, a new flagship notebook equipped with Gemini Intelligence that combines premium materials, strong performance, smart features, and seamless syncing with Android phones. The Acer Googlebook 14 is also the first convertible Googlebook on the market.

Microsoft opens fourth India cloud region, casting Hyderabad as an AI hub for Asia and the Global South

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:01:45 GMT

Microsoft has turned a headline slice of its US$20.5 billion India commitment into operating infrastructure, opening a Hyderabad cloud region it intends to serve customers well beyond India's borders. The move positions the country as a supply base for AI compute at a moment when it generates far more data than it can process at home.

Hanmi Semiconductor ships first FC Bonder 75 for 2.5D packaging

Sherri Wang — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:56:26 GMT

Hanmi Semiconductor said on September 22 that it has shipped its first FC Bonder 75 to a customer, expanding the South Korean equipment maker's reach beyond high-bandwidth memory (HBM) into the broader system semiconductor packaging market.

Alibaba speeds V900 rollout, targeting 20GW of data centers

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:53:22 GMT

Alibaba Group is accelerating the rollout of its next-generation Zhenwu V900 accelerator by about six months as it expands a vertically integrated computing platform spanning processors, networking, storage and data centers.

NASA adds three SpaceX crew missions as Boeing's Starliner lags

Yunnie Cheng — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:46:12 GMT

As SpaceX continues to expand its Crew Dragon missions and as technical delays push Boeing's Starliner certification timeline out to potentially 2027, the gap in the agency's dual-supplier strategy continues to widen.

Taiwan virtual asset law to help lower supply chain transaction costs

Rodney Chan — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:41:16 GMT

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Virtual Asset Service Act in June 2026, and Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is now drafting delegated regulations, with completion planned for the first quarter of 2027. PwC Taiwan managing director Monica Lee said banks will need licenses to operate virtual asset services, and lending licenses are the most likely to be profitable.

DeepSeek bets on Huawei chips for model training as Nvidia's China sales slip

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:28:05 GMT

DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng said during a call with investors that he aims to rely on Huawei chips to train the startup's models in the future, and that a batch of training chips from Huawei are set to begin arriving at his company as early as the fourth quarter of 2026.

DEEPX targets smart glasses with low-power NPU, eyes 6G AI RAN

Levi Li — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:22:00 GMT

South Korean AI semiconductor company DEEPX is reportedly conducting a proof of concept with a US smart glasses company to test whether its low-power neural processing unit (NPU) can balance power consumption, thermal performance, and AI computing capability.

Chinese automakers step up battery in-house push to reclaim cost control

Charlene Chen — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:16:42 GMT

As Li Auto, NIO, Xiaomi, Geely, GAC, GWM, Chongqing Changan Automobile, and Chery step up efforts to develop and manufacture batteries in-house, the tug-of-war between China's automakers and battery leader CATL over self-production versus outsourcing is intensifying.

Micron Taiwan union heads for strike vote as board, earnings calendar stall profit-sharing talks

Charlene Chen — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:39:06 GMT

The labor dispute at Micron Taiwan continues to escalate after Micron and the Taiwan Taoyuan Union failed to reach agreement at a second mediation meeting on September 21, 2026. The union said the company has not presented a concrete profit-sharing plan and announced it will launch a strike vote under the Act for Settlement of Labor-Management Disputes, while Micron said it will keep talking and coordinating but must still go through board procedures.

Xiaomi open-sources MiMo-V2.6, publishes the bill for scaling reinforcement learning

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:39:02 GMT

Chinese labs have spent the year arguing that reinforcement learning, not pre-training, holds the next gains. Xiaomi has now put a price on that argument. The company released and open-sourced its MiMo-V2.6 series on September 22, after livestreaming the reinforcement learning post-training run that produced it — publishing step counts, token consumption, and a running cost meter on a public page as the models trained.

Alibaba expands full-stack AI push as cloud data centers target 20 GW by 2032

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 04:38:27 GMT

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. doubled down on its full-stack AI strategy at the 2026 Apsara Conference, which opened on Sept. 22 at the Hangzhou International Expo Center. Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai made a rare appearance at the opening ceremony and said AI is moving from frontier exploration toward real-world deployment and large-scale applications.

BOE looks beyond displays with glass substrates for AI packaging

Levi Li — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 04:30:25 GMT

Chinese display maker BOE Technology is expanding beyond its core panel business. Chairman Chen Yanshun said at the BOE Global Innovation Partner Conference 2026 on September 22 that the company's glass substrates are undergoing customer validation, marking a shift from technology development toward customer adoption.

Samsung weighs 4nm expansion as HBM4 demand strains capacity

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 04:28:55 GMT

Samsung Electronics is considering expanding its 4nm foundry capacity as rising HBM4 base-die demand pushes existing capacity to full utilization, South Korea's Money Today reported on September 21. The company is also reviewing whether to build a new 2nm production line for base dies in future HBM5 products.

TSMC, ASE break ground on Taiwan's first advanced packaging cluster in Kaohsiung

Sherri Wang — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:58:07 GMT

Rising demand for advanced packaging tied to AI and high-performance computing (HPC) is driving development at Baipu Industrial Park in Kaohsiung, where construction has formally begun on what is billed as Taiwan's first advanced packaging supply-chain cluster. Led by TSMC, the park's first phase has already been fully allocated, and a groundbreaking ceremony on September 21 drew more than 20 semiconductor companies, including TSMC, Foxconn, and ASE.

Escalating risks, evolving safeguards: a chronological look at OpenAI's safety strategy

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:51:22 GMT

As artificial intelligence advances toward greater autonomy, balancing capabilities with safety has become a central challenge for industry leaders. Emerging model behaviors and high-profile security incidents have prompted a continuous evolution of safety initiatives, internal engineering adjustments, and proposed joint testing efforts between major AI developers.

Chinese AMOLED material suppliers set for revenue gains as Gen 8 fabs boost localization

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:29:07 GMT

Chinese AMOLED material suppliers are poised to gain market share as new 8G OLED fabs expand capacity in China. The shift could reshape supply chains for global display buyers, while also accelerating global demand for materials used in notebooks, premium panels, and future OLED Macs.

Googlebook opens preorders at US$899 for AI laptops

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:26:44 GMT

Google has opened preorders for the first Googlebook models, with prices starting at US$899, as it pushes Gemini AI deeper into the notebook experience and links phones, apps, and desktop workflows through a new operating system that blends Android and ChromeOS elements. The launch targets Android users, developers, and the premium notebook market.

India's fifth chip plant goes live, capping Suchi Semicon's three-year buildout

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:15:06 GMT

Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated commercial production at Suchi Semicon's outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) plant in Palsana, Surat, on September 17, alongside CDIL Semiconductor's assembly, testing, marking, and packaging unit in Mohali, Punjab. The two facilities take the number of semiconductor projects in commercial production in India to five, according to The New Indian Express, joining Micron, Kaynes Semicon, and CG Semi at Sanand in Gujarat.

Exclusive: China SiC capacity tightens, spilling orders over to Taiwanese foundries

Charlene Chen — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:14:45 GMT

China's silicon carbide (SiC) end-market demand is expanding rapidly, driven by high-voltage charging infrastructure and AI servers. The surge in orders has tightened SiC wafer capacity in China, and some offshore companies seeking foundry partners there have reportedly been turned away, pushing spillover business toward Taiwan, where Episil, HYS, and Diodes are among the names cited as potential beneficiaries.

MediaTek unveils Dimensity CX C10 Max for premium Googlebook devices

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:06:37 GMT

MediaTek has introduced a new chip aimed at premium, ultra-portable Googlebook devices, underscoring how next-generation AI, battery life, and wireless performance could shape consumer computing worldwide. The Dimensity CX C10 Max is built for thinner systems, faster multitasking, and privacy-focused Gemini features in markets beyond Asia.

Meta's rumored Luna smart glasses may go camera-free for lighter design

Sherri Wang — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:00:23 GMT

Meta Connect 2026 is set to begin on September 23, with the next generation of AI smart glasses expected to be a key focus. Among the products drawing particular industry attention is a device internally code-named "Luna," which is reportedly being designed without a camera.

Taiwan advances major science park expansion to support AI, semiconductor growth

Willis Ke — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:54:12 GMT

Demand from high-tech companies for new research and manufacturing sites remains strong, prompting Taiwan to advance plans to expand Longtan Science Park by 104 hectares as the government seeks to accommodate continued growth in AI and semiconductor industries.

Apple's reported AI server push could reshape its role in enterprise infrastructure

Jingyue Hsiao — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:49:39 GMT

Apple is reportedly developing an enterprise AI inference server powered by its in-house M8 Ultra chips. This move could mark its return to the enterprise server market after more than a decade. If the project reaches market, it may also reshape Apple's infrastructure strategy, supplier relationships, and place in AI computing.

Brussels will put a public efficiency grade on Europe's data centers before it decides what to require of them

DIGITIMES — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:36:45 GMT

Europe intends to triple its data center capacity within five to seven years. On September 21, the European Commission set out how it plans to monitor that expansion: a common EU rating scheme that will attach a public electronic label, covering energy and water use, to every data center in the bloc with at least 500kW of installed IT power demand. The label provides ratings; it does not yet impose requirements. Binding minimum performance standards are a separate proposal, and the consultation on them opened only that day.