DIGITIMES: News and Insight of the Global Supply Chain

Novosense encoder launch highlights China's push into robot joint sensing

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:58:20 GMT

Chinese analog and mixed-signal chipmaker Novosense Microelectronics has introduced the NSM350x series, a Hall-based magnetic encoder designed for high-precision angular measurement in robot joints and industrial motion-control systems, reports Sina Finance.

AI infrastructure boom drives Taiwan export orders, exposing power bottleneck, net-zero tech needs

Eifeh Strom — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:50:27 GMT

Global artificial intelligence infrastructure buildouts and rising capex by cloud service providers pushed Taiwan's July export orders for information and communications technology (ICT) products, led by AI servers, up nearly 90% year-over-year, while export orders for foundry and memory also rose by more than 70%. However, companies in advanced economies are encountering power shortages as they invest in AI infrastructure, exposing a bottleneck that highlights the need to develop AI computing and net-zero technologies in tandem.

Toyota and Honda's US manufacturing push could reshape market share, not just tariffs

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:45:25 GMT

Toyota and Honda are accelerating US manufacturing as tariffs, local-content rules, and policy shifts reshape the auto industry. The move is defensive, but it is also a growth strategy. With American demand likely to stay steady rather than surge, Japanese automakers appear to be betting that expansion will come from taking share from rivals.

Tactical drone market reshapes as startups and incumbents compete

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:42:19 GMT

The tactical drone market is entering a turning point in which legacy platform suppliers and software-driven startups are competing head-on while also seeking new roles through collaboration. Janes, citing industry sources in Europe, the Middle East and North America, said startups including Anduril, Helsing, Quantum Systems and Stark Defence are accelerating their push into the market and have already caused clear disruption to the tactical drone supply chain, though it is still too early to call the market saturated.

China launches record auto recall over electronic door safety

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:41:53 GMT

China has launched its largest-ever auto recall, involving about 4.27 million vehicles over risks tied to electronic door emergency unlocking. The action is led by Tesla and a group of Chinese EV startups, including Xiaomi, Leapmotor and Xpeng, while joint ventures backed by European, US and Japanese automakers were left out.

Infineon buys India-based C2i Semiconductors to bolster AI data center power systems

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:35:07 GMT

Infineon Technologies has agreed to acquire Bangalore-based C2i Semiconductors, a move that strengthens its position in power delivery for AI data centers and highlights India's growing role in chip design. The deal could shape how global operators manage rising energy demand, efficiency pressures, and next-generation computing workloads.

Taipower pushes 'information flow' strategy to ease northern Taiwan's AI data center power crunch

Eifeh Strom — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:18:23 GMT

As artificial intelligence chip power consumption continues to rise, server racks are moving toward the megawatt (MW) scale. Amid the "electrical power is computing power" trend, the importance of power electronics is increasing, while the overall power system also faces significant upgrade requirements.

Nvidia Groq 3 LPX enters full production for faster agentic AI inference

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:04:15 GMT

Nvidia said its Groq 3 LPX inference accelerator is now in full production, a move that could speed up agentic AI systems used worldwide for coding, reasoning, and other tasks. The company said the platform is designed to improve responsiveness, lower latency, and support growing demand for real-time AI applications.

SpaceXAI to use Nvidia Vera CPUs for faster agentic AI at scale

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 01:02:04 GMT

SpaceXAI plans to deploy Nvidia's new Vera CPUs to speed up agentic AI workloads, a move that could influence how advanced AI systems are built and run worldwide. The partnership also extends toward orbital computing, signaling a broader shift in where future AI infrastructure may be located.

IBM unveils dual-architecture mainframe chip to run Arm, z/OS, Linux workloads

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:49:56 GMT

In an August 24 press release, IBM announced that it is developing the first dual-architecture mainframe processor, a move that could let global enterprises run Arm-native and IBM workloads on the same future systems. The milestone may broaden software choices, accelerate AI adoption, and reshape mission-critical computing for banks, governments, and large cloud operators worldwide.

Broadcom's debt push signals AI compute is becoming Wall Street asset class

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:06:48 GMT

The AI infrastructure race is entering a phase where access to silicon is no longer the only constraint. As compute demand expands into multi-gigawatt projects, the industry is increasingly confronting a second bottleneck: how to finance hardware and data-center capacity at the scale frontier-model developers now require.

AIDC eyes 2H26 lift from drones, jets

Lily Hess — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:06:20 GMT

Aerospace Industrial Development (AIDC) is cautiously optimistic about business momentum in the second half of 2026 as Taiwan's drone policy becomes clearer and defense work stays solid. Senior Vice President Hwai-Sheng King said the company has more than NT$100 billion (approx. US$3.1 billion) in orders on hand across defense, civil aviation, and technology services over the next five years, while it also pushes into the space satellite field, advanced composites, and structural parts.

Zhongji Innolight's 1.6T surge shows AI networking is becoming next hyperscaler bottleneck

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:06:02 GMT

The AI infrastructure boom has long been defined by a race to secure GPUs, memory and power. Yet as cluster sizes continue expanding, another layer of the system is beginning to emerge as an equally decisive constraint: the optical links responsible for moving data fast enough between increasingly dense pools of accelerators.

SK Hynix and Alibaba tackle the next AI bottleneck: getting more value per chip

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:05:25 GMT

The AI infrastructure race has been marked by a near-fixated drive to expand AI-powered buildouts, as demand for increasingly complex chip configurations pushes against the physical and economic limits of scalability.

Samsung Display resumes A7 construction as foldable demand rebounds

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:04:22 GMT

Samsung Display has resumed construction at its second campus in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, reviving a long-dormant OLED project just as the foldable smartphone market is expected to swing from a weak first half of 2026 to a stronger second half.

Inergy server share hits 47% on cooling, BBU demand

Lily Hess — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:03:53 GMT

Inergy Technology said strong demand for AI server cooling and power management pushed the share of server-related applications to 47% of revenue in the second quarter of 2026, with shipments of system-on-chip (SoC) cooling fan driver ICs set to ramp up in the second half of 2026 and battery backup unit (BBU) demand expected to keep rising as AI moves toward high-voltage direct current power architectures.

CNFI White Paper outlines solutions as labor, transformation, and energy headline Taiwan's industry hurdles

Yunnie Cheng — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:03:34 GMT

Navigating volatile US tariff policies, escalating geopolitical tensions, and a productivity revolution driven by agentic AI, Taiwan's industrial sector has reached a decisive crossroads.

Applied Materials executive says data centers set new AI competition standard

Yunnie Cheng — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:03:04 GMT

Commenting on the current surge in artificial intelligence (AI), Erix Yu, group vice president of Applied Materials and president of Applied Materials Taiwan, recently shared his perspective by tracing the evolution of industrial revolutions.

Nvidia memory demand widens the gap between SK Hynix and Samsung

DIGITIMES — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:02:41 GMT

Nvidia's AI memory orders helped drive a sharp split between SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics in the first half of 2026. According to Chosun Biz, Nvidia became SK Hynix's biggest customer in the first half of 2026, while it did not rank among Samsung's top five revenue sources.

Hotai and Nan Yang cut Taiwan auto market outlook as risks linger

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:55:00 GMT

Taiwan's new-car market is cooling, with Hotai Motor and Nan Yang Industrial both taking a cautious view of the second half of 2026. The companies cited geopolitical uncertainty, volatile international oil prices, tariff concerns and softer consumer sentiment in revising their outlook for the market.

YouTube offers funding to keep creators from streaming with Netflix

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:46:00 GMT

YouTube is preparing offers of millions of dollars in funding and brand revenue sharing to keep major creators from taking simultaneous streaming deals with Netflix, according to Bloomberg. The move comes as the two platforms compete more directly for top talent and audience attention in the US and beyond.

Xiaomi taps TSMC to make chips for foldables, AI and autonomous driving

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:08:47 GMT

Xiaomi is expanding its in-house semiconductor push from smartphones into AI acceleration and autonomous driving, unveiling three Xring processors that deepen its reliance on TSMC manufacturing while reducing dependence on external chip suppliers.

How Nvidia's whitelist was beaten: 74 B300 servers, Taiwan to China

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:07:27 GMT

Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors Office has indicted nine people over the illegal export of high-end AI servers built on Nvidia's B300 GPUs. The indictment lays out, step by step, how a compliance regime designed to track every unit was defeated from the inside.

Etron chair sees memory boom extending to 2028-2030

Lily Hess — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:45:00 GMT

The memory industry is undergoing a structural shift as AI demand surges, and Etron Technology chairman Nicky Lu said the sector's boom will stretch beyond 2027, with shortages likely lasting through 2028 and possibly into 2030. He said supply is tightening further as AI and edge computing create rigid demand, pushing the supply chain to focus on higher-value applications.

TPK TGV pilot line to start by September, Thailand plant eyes 2027 ramp

Lily Hess — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:20:00 GMT

TPK Holding is accelerating its move from consumer touch panels into semiconductors, with its Through Glass Via (TGV) pilot line in Taoyuan, Taiwan set to begin operations in August or September. The company is also working with leading outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) providers on the project, while its new Thailand production base aims to complete trial runs by year-end and begin volume production in early 2027.

AI energy bottleneck is driving semiconductor materials innovation, says Applied Materials

Eifeh Strom — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 07:56:00 GMT

Rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) computing is driving a new wave of technological transformation in the semiconductor industry, while energy is emerging as the next bottleneck for the AI sector. Applied Materials group vice president and Taiwan president Eric Yu pointed out that semiconductor technology competition in the AI era can no longer focus solely on performance and transistor counts. How to support more computing with less energy will become the core of the next stage of semiconductor innovation.

Advanced packaging substrates hit limits; ceramic cores rise to challenge glass materials

Yunnie Cheng — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 07:00:00 GMT

As hardware demands for artificial intelligence continue to surge, beyond increased size and complexity in chip packaging, advanced packaging substrates face mounting challenges: larger package footprints, higher layer counts, lower warpage, and higher accuracy. However, relying solely on incremental upgrades to traditional manufacturing processes is hitting a physical wall. This bottleneck is compelling the industry to evaluate next-generation core layer materials.

Nvidia's strikes US$6B licensing deal with Poolside to accelerate Nemotron models

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:57:23 GMT

Nvidia reportedly struck a US$6 billion deal with startup Poolside to license its technology and hire much of its staff. The technology and personnel will reportedly support the chipmaker's Nemotron models in a bid to compete with China's strength in open-source models, but the deal also puts Nvidia in competition with some of its biggest customers.

Samsung's DRAM capacity lead shrinks as SK Hynix expands faster

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:56:33 GMT

Samsung Electronics' DRAM wafer capacity will grow only marginally through 2027, with investment directed at node migration and line conversions rather than aggressive wafer-capacity expansion, according to Omdia data obtained by Chosun Biz.

Taiwan's Iron Force shifts airbag output to Poland, targets AI server component ramp in 2027

Willis Ke — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:55:00 GMT

Taiwan-based Iron Force Industrial is reshaping its manufacturing footprint as pressure on its traditional auto-parts business weighs on earnings. The company plans to expand its Poland plant and shift some airbag production from Taiwan, while AI server-related components, now contributing only marginal revenue, are expected to enter mass production in 2027.

UAE weighs investment in 500 MW AI data center plan in Japan

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:35:00 GMT

The United Arab Emirates is considering backing a proposed 500 MW AI data center in Akita prefecture, Japan, after local officials met with the UAE ambassador on Aug. 19. The project, which could begin operations as early as 2030, is being positioned as one of Japan's largest data center developments if it moves ahead.

Pixel 11 preorder surge lifts Google's Taiwan smartphone share

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:20:00 GMT

Google's newly launched Pixel 11 series drew a strong preorder response in Taiwan after telecom carriers rolled out expanded promotions and sales plans. The early momentum has renewed attention on whether Google can lift its local smartphone share above 5%.

Nvidia reportedly weighs Perplexity investment as AI strategy expands beyond chips

DIGITIMES — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:59:58 GMT

Nvidia is reportedly in discussions to invest in artificial intelligence startup Perplexity as part of a funding round that would value the company at more than US$30 billion, underscoring the chipmaker's increasingly aggressive effort to deepen its influence across the AI software ecosystem.

German auto industry hardens stance against Chinese competition

Rodney Chan — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:55:00 GMT

Germany's top auto industry lobby, the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), is overhauling its strategy as it hardens its stance on China. The group has said China must put forward constructive proposals, quickly stop distorting competition, and avoid using export restrictions on technologies and materials to hinder free-world trade.

Taiwan semiconductor materials hit golden opportunity

Yunnie Cheng — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:45:00 GMT

Rising concerns over potential supply chain chokepoints for critical raw materials have driven the formation of the SEMI Taiwan Materials Alliance. Wei-Wang Chen, General Manager of Everlight Chemical and Chairman of the Taiwan Chemical Industry Association (TCIA), noted that Taiwan boasts the world's largest tier-one customer demand alongside the most stringent process specifications. This unique position, he stated, presents a "once-in-a-century golden opportunity" for local semiconductor material development.