DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

Global PMX revenue rises as advanced foundry and AI cooling demand strengthen

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:03:18 GMT

Global PMX said on July 6 that demand tied to semiconductor advanced-process equipment and AI server liquid-cooling systems remained strong, helping lift June 2026 consolidated revenue to NT$750 million (US$23.47 million), up 30.66% from a year earlier. The automotive powertrain and safety component maker also reported higher revenue for the second quarter of 2026 and the first half of the year.

Tesla starts public road tests of Cybercab

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:02:51 GMT

Tesla has begun engineering tests of its production Cybercab on public roads in Austin, Texas, putting the two-seat robotaxi into real-world city traffic for the first time. The move marked an early step toward a driverless ride-hailing service built around a vehicle designed without a steering wheel or brake pedals.

Microloops revenue hits record on cloud server cooling demand

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:02:28 GMT

Taiwan Microloops Corp. said July 6 that June revenue reached a record NT$503 million, up 52.41% from May and 29.30% from a year earlier, driven by stronger demand for AI server cooling products and heavier pull-ins from a major cloud service provider customer. AI-related products now account for more than 70% of revenue, the company said.

Sharp taps Foxconn for US$1.9 billion new-business push

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:02:12 GMT

Sharp is aiming for annual sales of JPY200 billion to JPY300 billion, roughly US$1.2 billion to US$1.9 billion, from a new group of businesses it is developing with its parent company, Taiwan's Foxconn.

Meituan open-sources LongCat-2.0 as China's domestic AI stack gains momentum

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:01:33 GMT

Meituan has open-sourced LongCat-2.0, a trillion-parameter AI model trained and deployed entirely on Chinese computing infrastructure, turning the once-anonymous Owl Alpha into a key test of China's domestic AI model and chip ecosystem.

Satellite sovereignty goes global: Asia and Europe move to cut the Starlink cord

DIGITIMES — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:01:10 GMT

Governments across Asia and Europe are moving to build or protect homegrown satellite communications, driven by a shared anxiety: that critical connectivity should not rest in foreign, privately controlled hands. Recent policy moves in Japan, China, and the EU reveal the same instinct — technological sovereignty in orbit — pursued through starkly different tools.

Pegatron chairman downplays Intel CPU price hike worries

Sherri Wang — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:00:35 GMT

Intel confirmed on July 6 that it will raise suggested prices for consumer and server CPUs, stirring questions about whether the move will push up PC costs and affect consumer demand in the second half of 2026.

Genius Electronic Optical June sales rise as mobile phone price impact appears limited

Sherri Wang — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 00:00:22 GMT

Genius Electronic Optical (GSEO) reported consolidated revenue of NT$1.739 billion (approx. US$54.3 million) for June, up 6.77% from NT$1.629 billion in May.

Kinko Optical sales jump 73% as smart glasses push takes shape

Sherri Wang — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:59:58 GMT

Kinko Optical reported June revenue of NT$430 million (approx. US$13.39 million) on July 7, up 5.89% from May and 73.31% from a year earlier.

Foxsemicon June, 1H26 revenue hits record on AI orders

Charlene Chen — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:59:41 GMT

Foxsemicon Integrated Technology (FITI) posted record consolidated revenue of NT$2.451 billion (US$76.3 million) in June 2026, up 24.22% from May and 39.75% year-over-year. First-half 2026 consolidated revenue reached NT$11.855 billion, up 17.7% year-over-year and also a record for the period, underscoring steady growth momentum.

Foxconn pivots to strategic investing, says timing and team trump tech

Scarlett Yu — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:58:54 GMT

Speaking at the Taiwan Venture Capital and Private Equity Annual Conference on July 7, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu outlined the company's evolving investment strategy amid the restructuring of global technology supply chains.

Foxconn chair: Two of four AI customer groups yet to reach full-scale demand

Scarlett Yu — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:58:15 GMT

Speaking at the Taiwan Venture Capital and Private Equity Annual Conference on July 7, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said demand for AI computing power has entered a phase of structural growth.

Silicon Labs says Matter 1.6 will accelerate smart home growth

Charlene Chen — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:57:28 GMT

Silicon Labs principal product manager Rob Alexander said Matter 1.6, which the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) is set to introduce in June 2026, will be a key upgrade for fully connected edge AIoT devices.

Wistron sees AI demand holding up as sovereign AI gains traction

Sherri Wang — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:56:43 GMT

Skepticism about the durability of AI demand continues to surface, but the supply chain remains confident in the sector's outlook. Wistron chairman Simon Lin said on July 7 that internal reports for July show shipment performance tracking closely with earlier projections, while sovereign AI demand is gaining momentum in regions outside the US, creating further business opportunities.

Ennostar and Everlight turn up growth in 2Q26

Charlene Chen — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:56:08 GMT

LED makers Ennostar and Everlight both posted year-over-year, month-over-month, and quarter-over-quarter revenue growth in June and in the second quarter of 2026, as the industry entered its traditional shipment peak season. Ennostar's quarterly revenue reached about NT$6.324 billion (approx. US$197.1 million), up more than 20% quarter-over-quarter, with profits also set to benefit from a NT$1.173 billion gain on the earlier sale of its Miaoli Zhunan plant.

WinWay's record June revenue driven by full AI test interface orders

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:55:45 GMT

WinWay Technologies said that its June revenue rose to a record NT$1.5 billion (US$454.8 million), supported by demand from AI, high performance computing, ASICs, GPUs, CPUs, and other applications despite shipments being disrupted by typhoons. The semiconductor test interface supplier also said its order intake for AI-related test platforms remained full heading into the third quarter of this year.

US, China take divergent paths toward humanoid robot scale-up

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 23:55:11 GMT

US ruling confirms Innoscience infringed Infineon's GaN patents, imposes import ban

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 09:23:32 GMT

The US International Trade Commission's final determination against Innoscience has been upheld following the conclusion of the Presidential Review Period, confirming that the Chinese GaN chipmaker infringed a patent held by Germany's Infineon Technologies.

Exec pleads no guilty in Singapore over alleged smuggling of Nvidia chips to China

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 09:14:05 GMT

Alan Wei Zhaolun, an executive at Aperia Group, pleaded not guilty in a fraud case alleging that he and three others illegally misrepresented themselves to obtain servers containing Nvidia chips before rerouting them to China. He has been accused by Singaporean prosecutors of money laundering and other charges, as Singapore emerges as a hub for illicit AI chip flows to China.

AI servers and MacBook demand push Quanta revenue to new record

Levi Li — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 08:42:23 GMT

Strong AI demand lifted Quanta's revenue to a record high in June 2026 and pushed second-quarter sales to a new peak, with servers serving as the main growth driver and notebook shipments also contributing. Quanta shipped 4.5 million notebooks in June, up 28.57% from the previous month, bringing second-quarter notebook shipments to 11.5 million units, compared with 10 million in the first quarter.

Zhen Ding 2H26 outlook brightens on server and optical demand

Sherri Wang — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 07:30:00 GMT

PCB maker Zhen Ding said June revenue climbed to a fresh 2026 high, extending strong year-over-year growth as demand for AI-related high-end applications continued to build.

China's sodium battery boom faces supply risk

Lily Hess — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 07:02:48 GMT

China's sodium-ion battery sector is drawing intense attention as surging lithium carbonate prices lift lithium battery production costs. But Chinese media say the market is already showing a split between "big-company heat and small-company chill," and that large-scale production could expose new material shortages.

Exclusive: Geckos bets on AI materials beyond nano copper powders and CPO waveguides

Charlene Chen — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 06:46:07 GMT

As generative AI drives rapid growth in high-performance computing (HPC) demand, the semiconductor industry is shifting from process-node competition to materials competition. Geckos chairman Raymond Shen said that once chip manufacturing advances to 2nm and beyond, improvements in AI computing power are no longer just a chip-design issue, but are increasingly constrained by materials' heat dissipation and high-frequency signal transmission capabilities.

Microsoft AI data center faces Wisconsin lawsuit over noise and light pollution

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 06:07:57 GMT

Microsoft's US$7.3 billion Fairwater AI data center in Wisconsin is facing a class-action lawsuit from nearby residents over alleged noise, light pollution, dust and heavy truck traffic. The complaint, filed on July 1, centers on the Sturtevant and Mount Pleasant areas and highlights growing community concerns around large-scale AI infrastructure.

Taiwan wireless specialist Climax Technology set for mainboard listing as US, Europe orders drive record 1H26 revenue

Willis Ke — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:39:48 GMT

Wireless communications specialist Climax Technology is preparing for a listing on the TWSE mainboard later this month after posting record first-half 2026 revenue, supported by broad-based demand across Europe and North America. With production running at full utilization, the company is investing NT$2.3 billion (approx. US$71.72 million) in a new manufacturing facility in northern Taiwan to support its next phase of growth.

Hyundai Rotem targets 2029 hydrogen rail launch as Foshan case raises cost concerns

Lily Hess — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:30:00 GMT

South Korea's hydrogen rail commercialization is entering the final stretch, with Hyundai Rotem, a unit of Hyundai Motor Group, building hydrogen trains equipped with Hyundai Motor's in-house fuel cell system. The first commercial service is expected as early as 2029, but a 2024 shutdown of hydrogen trains in Foshan, China has raised questions about economic viability.

LGES posts higher second-quarter sales, supported by US production credits

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:16:44 GMT

LG Energy Solution (LGES) reported stronger second-quarter sales and a swing back to operating profit, a result that could matter for global investors tracking how policy incentives are shaping vehicle manufacturing profits. The company said US production credits boosted its results, while underlying operating performance would have been weaker without those subsidies.

Japanese startup completes AI chip validation with Oppstar and UMC support, moves toward mass production

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:15:00 GMT

Tokyo Artisan Intelligence said it has finished validating its Sting Ray test chip, a step that could broaden access to lower-power edge AI hardware for industries worldwide. The milestone highlights how startups and foundries are pushing specialized chips that may ease energy pressure from AI, even as they support real-time applications in factories, transport, and infrastructure.

Unimicron prices US$1.355 billion overseas depositary receipt offering

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:05:00 GMT

Unimicron Technology has priced a large overseas depositary receipt sale that could affect global investors monitoring Taiwan's electronics supply chain and semiconductor-related financing trends. The deal, which will fund foreign-currency purchases, is expected to reduce interest costs and strengthen the company's balance sheet, with potential benefits for shareholders worldwide.

US grid strain from AI power demand extends order boom for Taiwan equipment makers

Willis Ke — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

A US emergency order to stabilize electricity supplies during an extreme heat wave has underscored a deepening structural imbalance in the country's power system. As aging grid infrastructure struggles to keep pace with rapidly rising AI-driven electricity demand, Taiwan's power equipment manufacturers are seeing stronger order momentum and extending backlog visibility in North America.

Exclusive: Soaring lithium prices and China's mass production ignite a global sodium battery race

Charlene Chen — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 03:55:19 GMT

A more than 3x rise in China's lithium carbonate price over the past year has pushed sodium-ion batteries back into the spotlight, with the technology increasingly seen as a potential mainstream alternative to lithium batteries. But US industry players say sodium batteries made in the US still cost more than lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, and subsidies from federal and local governments have yet to create a viable market in the near term.

Adlink posts record 2Q revenue on rising edge AI demand

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 03:50:00 GMT

Adlink Technology reported record consolidated revenue for June and the second quarter of 2026, driven by stronger demand for edge AI applications and broader market expansion. The industrial computer maker said the gains lifted first-half performance sharply and reflected continued momentum in edge AI and physical AI deployments.

Sharp partners with SES on MEO satellites, expanding Foxconn's NTN ambitions

Scarlett Yu — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 03:45:00 GMT

Sharp has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with global satellite operator SES and expanded the agreement into a joint development partnership aimed at commercializing medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite communications and related applications in Japan.

LGES targets humanoid robot battery boom as Tesla Optimus supply looms

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 03:44:46 GMT

LG Energy Solution (LGES) is emerging as a key battery supplier for humanoid robots, as demand for high-performance batteries shifts from electric vehicles to physical AI systems with tighter space, weight and runtime requirements.

CATL's profit surge widens China's battery lead over global rivals

DIGITIMES — Tue, 7 Jul 2026 03:11:54 GMT

China's battery industry is widening its lead at home and abroad. Market leader CATL posted record profits while expanding its dominance in overseas electric vehicle (EV) markets. The results underscore the growing imbalance between battery suppliers and automakers.