DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

Commentary: Can Nvidia's AI moat survive without Jensen Huang?

Lily Hess — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:59:57 GMT

Under mounting pressure, Nvidia founder Jensen Huang has resigned as president, CEO, and board member, effective immediately. Executive vice president and chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO, while the board launches an internal and external search for a successor.

AI memory may balance after mid-2028 while compute and supporting chips stay short, SMIC says

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:58:28 GMT

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) expects artificial intelligence (AI) demand to keep chip supply tight through mid-2028, even as equipment lead times of up to two years slow its own capacity build-out, executives said on the company's third-quarter 2026 earnings call.

Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang agrees to testify before Congress

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:54:41 GMT

Nvidia founder and former CEO Jensen Huang has agreed to appear before the US House of Representatives ahead of the holiday break, addressing export controls and related controversies. Several senior lawmakers had previously threatened to subpoena Huang over Nvidia's business strategy in China and related policy issues.

Cerebras lifts third-quarter revenue 55% as cloud inference overtakes hardware sales

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:42:40 GMT

Cerebras Systems has become more of a cloud inference business than a hardware supplier. In the third quarter ended September 30, 2026, the company reported record GAAP revenue of US$210.8 million, up 55% from a year earlier. Cloud and other services now account for about two-thirds of the total. Reported profitability has not kept pace. Non-cash charges for customer warrants and employee stock compensation, which jumped after the company's listing, pulled GAAP gross margin down to 20% and left operating losses far wider than a year ago.

CMC Magnetics' operating profit surges 20-fold in 1Q–3Q26

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:26:48 GMT

CMC Magnetics reported consolidated revenue of NT$6.17 billion (US$187.29 million) for the first three quarters of 2026, up 17% year on year, as its core businesses grew and its Storage & Power (S'n'P) strategy began to show results. Operating profit reached NT$311 million, nearly 20 times its level a year earlier. Net income totaled NT$2.327 billion, with earnings per share of NT$2.17.

E Ink Holdings' assets hit record NT$127.4B as it targets AI materials

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:25:41 GMT

E Ink Holdings, a leading e-paper maker, reported third-quarter 2026 consolidated revenue of NT$9.936 billion (US$301.60 million), down 5% from a year earlier. Net income attributable to the parent was NT$2.652 billion, and quarterly earnings per share were NT$2.3.

SpaceX's US$74 billion Texas-Arizona AI data center expansion faces local opposition and political hurdles

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:20:10 GMT

SpaceX plans to invest more than US$74 billion in AI supercomputing campuses in Texas and Arizona, expanding beyond rockets and satellite internet into large-scale AI infrastructure. The projects promise thousands of jobs but face regulatory, environmental and political challenges.

Singapore bars Alice Huang from reentry, says investigation into Megaspeed remains ongoing

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:19:33 GMT

Singapore said it independently investigated Hong Kong resident Alice Huang and Singapore-registered Megaspeed International over suspected false declarations involving servers exported through Singapore, while stressing that companies must consider foreign export controls. The case highlights Singapore's position on cross-border trade, cooperation with overseas authorities, and enforcement against alleged dishonest practices.

SK Hynix's HBM4 yield tops 70% as Samsung expands chip packaging capacity

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:18:28 GMT

SK Hynix's sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) production yield has reportedly surpassed 70%, Chosun Biz reported on November 12, citing semiconductor industry sources, as rival Samsung Electronics moves ahead with a major chip packaging expansion.

Asus sees no major order impact from financing and data-center regulation changes

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:17:11 GMT

Tighter financing and stricter local oversight could lead to consolidation among weaker cloud providers and greater concentration in the data-center industry, Asus said. However, based on its current customer mix and preliminary customer feedback, the company has not seen major effects on construction plans or orders for the fourth quarter of 2026 or 2027.

Applied Materials posts record fourth-quarter revenue as AI-driven chip equipment demand accelerates

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:15:38 GMT

Applied Materials' record fourth-quarter revenue and operating income highlight how investment in AI infrastructure is translating into demand for wafer-fabrication equipment. Growth was led by equipment for advanced logic and memory, while a strong first-quarter outlook and management's projection for a rapidly expanding equipment market point to continued investment. Supply-chain and fab capacity will determine how quickly that demand becomes shipments.

Asus expects the 2027 PC market to shrink 10–15% as memory costs bite

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:12:39 GMT

Asus has turned cautious on the 2027 PC market, forecasting a 10–15% full-year decline as memory prices surge, end-user demand cools, and global regulation of data-center construction tightens. The company expects the decline to be steeper in the first half, with a gradual recovery only in the second half.

Asus reports record third-quarter revenue as server business grows

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:10:38 GMT

Asus posted record brand consolidated revenue of NT$258.788 billion (US$7.86 billion) in the third quarter of 2026, up 7% quarter-on-quarter and 36% year-on-year, as AI server shipments continued to grow. Net income rose 14% sequentially and 105% year-on-year to NT$21.631 billion.

Lutnick's clash with Treasury over Nvidia chip curbs deepens as White House weighs his future

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:10:34 GMT

A dispute between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over how hard to police Nvidia chip shipments to China has moved to the center of Washington's fallout from espionage allegations involving Nvidia's former CEO, with White House officials discussing whether Lutnick should be pushed out and lawmakers pressing his department to add Chinese firms that have been left alone to its Entity List.

Remote access emerges as biggest gap in US chip controls as Congress and Commerce move to close it

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:04:04 GMT

The loophole that lets Chinese AI developers rent Nvidia chips in overseas data centers is becoming the main target of a tougher US export-control push. Democrats swept both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterms, and the Commerce Department is moving to finalize its own remote-access rule. The stakes are large: remote access accounts for about half of the US-made AI compute that Washington could still cut off from China by the end of 2027, according to the Institute for Progress (IFP).

LG Chem reportedly developing MR-MUF materials for HBM on top of NCF work

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 02:02:58 GMT

LG Chem is developing materials for the mass reflow-molded underfill (MR-MUF) process used to make high-bandwidth memory (HBM), Korean media outlet ETNews reported, citing industry sources. If successful, the effort would widen the range of critical HBM materials produced in South Korea and reduce reliance on imports.

Nvidia's roadmap is set through 2028, but its tempo, talent bench were built around Huang

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:56:00 GMT

Nvidia's product pipeline is locked in for the next two years, analysts say, but Jensen Huang's resignation calls into question the annual upgrade cadence he personally drove and exposes how thin the company's formal leadership bench is beneath a CEO who ran it with dozens of direct reports and no second-in-command.

Compal splits server R&D and sales into subsidiary

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:54:59 GMT

Compal Electronics will transfer the research and development and sales operations of its server-related Infrastructure Solutions Business Group (ISBG) to its wholly owned subsidiary Fusionite Corporation, while retaining manufacturing, under a board-approved spin-off plan.

AMD, Broadcom, custom chips eye an opening as Nvidia loses its founder CEO

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:47:33 GMT

Jensen Huang's departure from Nvidia has given AMD, Broadcom, and in-house chip programs at the largest cloud providers their clearest opening in years, analysts say. They expect existing orders to hold, with any meaningful shift in market share more likely from 2027 onward.

SMIC posts record third-quarter revenue as factory utilization nears full capacity

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:40:34 GMT

SMIC's record third-quarter revenue and sharper rise in operating profit point to stronger factory throughput, while the lower net result against the prior quarter shows how investment-related income can obscure the underlying manufacturing trend. The company expects sales to keep growing in the fourth quarter, but its margin guidance signals that the exceptional third-quarter level may not hold.

Huang's exit leaves Nvidia's role as the AI industry's financier without its dealmaker

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:26:14 GMT

Jensen Huang's resignation removes the executive who turned Nvidia's balance sheet into a funding source for the AI buildout, raising questions about whether the company will keep writing the guarantees, investments, and capacity deals that helped its customers buy its chips, even as financial experts say the commitments already made pose limited systemic risk.

Nvidia's interim CEO Colette Kress signals stability first as board weighs future after Huang

DIGITIMES — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 01:13:58 GMT

By handing the top job to its chief financial officer rather than an engineer, Nvidia's board has signaled that its priority after Jensen Huang's abrupt exit is to steady investors, customers, and operations, while the bigger strategic call on who will set the company's technology direction has been deferred to a search that analysts expect to take months.

Analysis: Nvidia's leadership change leaves Taiwan suppliers confident in near-term demand

Jingyue Hsiao — Fri, 13 Nov 2026 00:30:26 GMT

Jensen Huang's resignation is expected to have short-term effects on Taiwan's server suppliers, which are developing Nvidia's Vera Rubin and Feynman platforms. However, suppliers say the leadership change creates uncertainty over Nvidia's longer-term direction, including products after Feynman, and whether a successor will maintain ties with Taiwan's local supply chain.

Quantum computing faces security, geopolitical, talent hurdles

Lily Hess — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:47:15 GMT

The 2026 UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase recently concluded in London, where the DIGITIMES team interviewed experts from the UK's industry, academia, and research sectors about the challenges facing quantum computing's transition into real-world applications, including cybersecurity, US-China geopolitical tensions, and talent shortages.

Inside Y Combinator's Taipei debut: lessons from the accelerator's first Startup School in Asia

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:46:29 GMT

"If you want a future, you have to build it yourself."

Samsung reportedly moves up 8-inch foundry exit to 2029, outsources some production to UMC

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:46:08 GMT

Samsung Electronics is targeting an exit from its 8-inch foundry business by the end of 2029, a year earlier than previously reported, and has been outsourcing some production to Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), South Korea's Dealsite reported on November 12, citing industry sources.

Qualcomm begins India job cuts as handset chip sales slide

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:45:44 GMT

Qualcomm has started laying off employees in India, its largest engineering base outside the US, as the chipmaker carries out a performance-focused global workforce reduction amid a fall in smartphone chip sales.

India unveils indigenous AI models under IndiaAI Mission

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:45:18 GMT

India's release of the EKA-1, Dhīr 2B, and Dhīr 5B foundation models highlights a public-backed effort to develop multilingual AI for domestic and international use. The models range from those with large-scale reasoning and coding capabilities to lightweight, offline-capable assistants, with implications for data sovereignty, public services, enterprise deployment, and access in low-connectivity environments.

Pegatron 3Q26 operating profit jumps 150% on strong server, smartphone shipments

Sherri Wang — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:45:00 GMT

Pegatron's third-quarter operating profit jumped 149.7% from a year earlier to NT$8.04 billion (approx. US$244 million), as stronger server and smartphone shipments lifted revenue by more than 50%, the Taiwanese contract electronics manufacturer said on November 12.

Taiwan’s drone makers look beyond hardware to AI

Charlene Chen — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:44:29 GMT

DIGITIMES hosted a Tech Forum on developments in unmanned vehicles and Taoyuan's low-altitude economy, with Taoyuan Mayor Simon Chang, Qisda Chairman Peter Chen and Auden Techno Chairman Yu-Pin Chang among those attending. DIGITIMES Intelligence said Taiwanese companies are working to become a "reliable and trusted supply chain," while HY Tech CEO Yu-Tuan Chou expects the next phase of unmanned vehicles to focus on AI autonomy, unmanned operations and multi-vehicle coordination.

Analysis: Relationships built on Jensen Huang's personal ties now face test

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 21:43:53 GMT

The controversy surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has grown from a personal dispute into a broader question about corporate governance, succession planning, and the shifting power structure of the global AI supply chain. With Huang's formal resignation, the AI industry faces a new period of uncertainty, and Taiwan's supply chain must reassess its partnerships, order allocations, and industry interests.

Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO; CFO Colette Kress named interim chief

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 14:15:37 GMT

Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO and board member on November 12, effective immediately, the company's board said. He had led the company for 33 years, since its founding.

Micron says it has not required waivers and will keep negotiating in Taoyuan labor dispute

DIGITIMES — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 14:05:14 GMT

Micron Technology has responded to an open letter from the Taoyuan Union, a labor group in Taiwan, about its ongoing contract talks. Taoyuan is a city in northern Taiwan where Micron has a large factory, and the dispute centers on a new employee bonus program that the union has been pressing the company to discuss.

Quanta shifts 2027 capex toward power, the new battleground for AI server ODMs

Lily Hess — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 08:56:09 GMT

Quanta Computer posted strong revenue and earnings in the third quarter of 2026 and expects operations to continue accelerating in the fourth quarter, driven by AI servers. The company also forecasts another growth year in 2027, planning capital expenditure (capex) of NT$40 billion (US$1.21 billion) to NT$45 billion, although it says spending will begin to moderate.

Pegatron targets multiyear AI server surge, with Nvidia Vera Rubin shipments set for 1H27

Levi Li — Thu, 12 Nov 2026 08:52:40 GMT

Pegatron said at its November 12 earnings briefing that 2026 would mark its first year of server shipments, with the business expected to contribute about 10% of consolidated revenue and grow severalfold in 2027. Its portfolio spans Nvidia's GB series and HGX platforms, as well as custom ASIC servers, while shipments of next-generation Vera Rubin systems are expected to begin in the first half of 2027.