As the AI computing race accelerates and semiconductor manufacturing capacity is increasingly redirected toward advanced memory, the memory industry is shifting from price-driven competition to a battle over resource allocation and supply security. The rapid expansion of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production continues to consume advanced fabrication capacity, constraining the supply of conventional memory products and creating persistent shortages across the market. This concentration of high-end production has widened the supply-demand gap, driving the average selling prices of certain premium memory products to levels eight to ten times higher than previous norms

Rugged edge computing brand – Cincoze will showcase its latest embedded computing solutions at COMPUTEX Taipei 2026, from June 2–5 (Hall 2, Booth Q0401a). Cincoze will display its full range of edge computing solutions around the theme of "Smarter, Faster, More Reliable - Powered by Edge AI" encompassing the full spectrum of edge application environments in four dedicated zones, including DIN-Rail computers, industrial panel PCs and monitors, rugged embedded computers, and GPU embedded computers

Technology news, product launches and show highlights from the event attendees available for download (PDF).

Communication – for whatever purpose, be it trying to persuade the electorate to vote for you, to convince your audience to buy whatever product you're selling, to manage client relationships, or simply to become famous online through creating engagement – is, at its heart, an exercise in storytelling. In today's visual-first world plagued with short attention spans and what can seem like an infinite number of e-mails and ads diverting our concentration, being able to fashion compelling video-based stories is increasingly crucial to successful communication. Attempts to automate communication can also seem generic and devoid of empathy and personalisation, consigning them to failure.EQX Lab and its product, EQX Flow, aim to use artificial intelligence to enable the masses to successfully grab others' attention. By inputting a very simple text prompt, users will be able to generate videos that have the potential to go viral. Corporate sales teams will also be able to automate the creation of personalised, cinema-quality videos for client retention purposes.EQX Lab is the brainchild of Benjamin Cheung. He studied computer animation at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the state of Georgia and then moved to Hollywood, where he worked for many of the major animation studios – Square, Disney, DreamWorks, Sony, and Lucasfilm – for roughly 15 years. He worked on Square's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which came out in 2001 and was the world's first photorealistic computer-animated film (where the animated images appear as real-to-life as possible); and when he was at Sony Imageworks, on 2007's Beowulf.But Cheung always knew that he wanted to return to Asia, and so he moved to Taiwan in 2010 to work for an animation company that counted some of his former employers as major clients. He was then poached by a cloud-computing company in China whose president at the time was Taiwanese. Cheung stayed with this company, which specialised in rendering (using a computer to generate [usually 3-D] images) for almost seven years. During this time, he grew the company’s staff count by roughly seven times and its revenue by a factor of 30.Cheung had been the technical director for most of his projects in Hollywood – he was constantly using new tools and had to develop their back-end integration himself. This gave him enough confidence in his technical abilities to launch EQX Lab. He realised that even though there were already plenty of AI video-generation models, they all required a detailed prompt and only generated a somewhat passable video.Instead, what if you could make a professional-quality video with just a simple click, or a single word, or a short sentence? That's what EQX Flow aims to do.The tool is powered by the company's NEXES Engine, an AI pipeline that, from a single piece of user input, generates prompts, writes a script, composes a storyboard, and finally outputs a video. Chain-of-thought reasoning is used to come up with an emotional arc and narrative to the story. The system handles everything internally, so that the user doesn't need any technical knowledge to produce a cinematic result. Moreover, the engine creates five stories and, again using AI, measures how gripping they will be, choosing the best one to increase the chances of the chosen story going viral. (The engine pays particular attention to optimising the first three seconds of the clip, as these are the seconds that decide whether users continue watching or not.)In the current prototype, users input a story idea (something as simple as "play tennis"), and then specify from a list of options the gender of the protagonist; the type of video (e.g., a sports/fitness video); its niche (e.g., a glow-up video); the length of the clip; the type of person that the creator himself/herself is (e.g., a no-nonsense expert); and the 'look' of the clip (e.g., commercial realism, cinematic realism, cyberpunk, vintage film, or anime). Cheung intends to add a 'director's cut' option in a later incarnation of the story engine, where users will be able to emulate, for example, Christopher Nolan's aesthetic.EQX Flow will have two modes: fast and professional. The latter will be more sophisticated and, as a result, also more expensive (in his current prototype, it is about 2.5 times as expensive as the fast model). A tennis ball hitting a player in the face would look passably realistic in the professional-mode video; the fast mode would instead produce stylised visuals in a fraction of the time. Cheung says that directors often prefer the fast mode because it can produce unexpected scenes that they consider to be spontaneous.The tool is also modular: users will be able to stop after each stage (e.g., script generation), tweak things, and then move onto the next stage. Directors who already have a script and storyboard might not need the story engine at all – instead, they will only use EQX Flow’s back end to generate the shots and make the actual video. EQX Flow currently uses Google's generative AI models. This does not allow for the creation of violent, graphic, or adult material, a limitation that is in line with EQX Flow's business model and vision. They are also developing a model-agnostic pipeline, and plan to integrate additional leading AI video models to expand their creative possibilities and to reduce platform dependency.The company's Face-Lock technology can also incorporate photos that users upload of themselves or their desired characters into the videos.If non-specialists can now produce videos, should directors be worried about the future of their profession? Cheung doesn't think so. He says that average directors who don't learn how to use AI tools and don't improve the quality of their work might very well be replaced – but a good director can't be replaced by AI because directing is an art form and good films are unique products that cannot simply be reassembled from pre-existing films. Although Cheung is appreciative of the award, he is aware that he needs more than just the money it brings to fully launch EQX Flow. He is drawing on his network to expand his core technical team, growing his corporate presence in Taiwan, and actively seeking venture capital investors. In particular, he would like to raise three years of funding for research and development, which he will carry out in Taiwan. Cheung says that Taiwan provides a stable environment for his company, with a robust legal framework for intellectual property rights, top-tier engineering talent, and unfettered access to services such as Google.But despite its physical presence in Taiwan, Cheung is focussed on the North American market. Hollywood has the most advanced technology and the most resources for storytelling; Google works best in English; and the story engine has also been developed in English.The Best AI Awards celebrate global excellence in artificial intelligence and IC design, welcoming submissions from innovative companies and brilliant student teams. Following the success of the 2026 edition—advised by the MOEA, organized by DoIT, and executed by TCA—the prestigious competition is officially transitioning into an annual tradition.Offering substantial grand prizes and unmatched industry exposure, the countdown to Best AI Awards 2027 has already begun. Details on the next submission cycle, prize tiers, and eligibility rules will be released soon. Connect with us on LinkedIn for the latest official updates and application alerts.

By now, it's common knowledge that artificial intelligence has sped up coding and is now replacing junior software engineers. But can you really trust the code that AI produces?The answer is a clear no. Programmers are still needed to review the code for bugs of all sorts. Maybe the code hallucinates, meaning that it has the right syntax and looks plausible but attempts to, for example, import a library that doesn't exist. Maybe there are functional bugs, where the code simply produces the wrong result because of a faulty algorithm and these are just the simple errors.Moreover, companies are naturally hesitant to release sensitive or proprietary information, such as customer data, to an AI coding tool.Inferara wants to solve these problems. It wants to give you code on which you can rely, free from any vulnerabilities, and it does this by reformulating the code into mathematical notation. This is all done on the user's own computing infrastructure, so that no code or data is ever shared externally.Georgii Plotnikov is the CEO and CTO of Inferara. Originally from Russia, Plotnikov had been working as a software developer for a decade after graduating from university. Roughly five years ago, he started learning more about static code analysis, which can be likened to a real-time spell-checker for code: it is, essentially, early detection for any bugs or security vulnerabilities in the code.He started developing an idea for a new way to turn static code analysis into a mathematics problem at the end of 2023. Around the same time, he started to explore where he could settle down and legally incorporate his company. Plotnikov decided on Japan, sent his business plan and other documents to the country,s government, and after being awarded a startup visa, moved there in the summer of 2024. (Inferara is a relatively young company, incorporated only in October 2024.)Unlike many AI companies, which focus on their product and want to get them out to market as quickly as possible, Inferara is proud to call itself a research-first company. Its main product is not the code checker but rather Inference, which he describes as "a programming language that uses mathematics to ensure code works exactly as intended".This is also known as formal verification, and being formally verified gives programmers and users an additional layer of assurance that, for instance, cryptographic protocols will keep data secure, or that compilers for programming languages will not make mistakes. It's also important for mission-critical processes, such as those in automated (driver-less) driving systems, financial systems, energy plant controls, and medical devices.In a nutshell, formal verification examines all possible states that the (usually finite number of) variables or parameters can take, in order to ensure that the logic is sound. In contrast, simply testing the system with common values that the variables might take might not reach all possible states, especially as the number of variables increases, and it will definitely not reach all possible states when there are an infinite number of variables (or values that the variables can take).Mathematical proofs can group variables together and reduce the total number of states that need to be explored. They can even use mathematical induction to verify an infinitely large number of states.Traditionally, programmers have needed a sophisticated understanding of mathematical logic to manually perform formal verification. Inferara's Inference programming language performs formal verification as one codes (or as AI codes) and makes it possible for even those with no understanding of mathematical logic to guarantee their code's fidelity. Inference's diagnostics are also developed so that both humans and AI coding agents can interpret them and, thus, use them to improve the code's reliability.Inference builds upon and improves the user experience of using Rocq, a piece of software that can assist in mathematical proofs. Plotnikov says that Inference sets itself apart by working what appears to be slowly. Instead of writing code as quickly as possible, it continually checks the code's correctness as it is being generated. This takes more time but, in the end, is more cost-effective, since it requires fewer calls to AI later on. Plotnikov likens this to the slower, more rational and conscious system of thinking described in Daniel Kahneman's bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow.Inferara has now taken the next step beyond Inference: It has created Vibe Checker, an operating system that can encapsulate the entire AI-led code-development process. In addition to its own desktop AI agent, Vibe Checker is compatible with the existing, widely-used coding agents of Claude Code, Gemini, and Codex.Most companies currently using AI-assisted coding typically do so via the cloud (i.e., off-premises). Although the code and data is stored under the programmer's domain, all that information traverses multiple external barriers when being run. Vibe Checker provides its own gateway, comprising its own server and the user’s own cloud computing security model (also known as bring-your-own-encryption, bring-your-own-key, or BYOK). Vibe Checker's most data-secure services will host everything on users' own infrastructure, and is appropriate for those users who have the resources to buy their own hardware. There is total data sovereignty: no data ever leaves the user's infrastructure, nothing is ever uploaded to Inferara's servers, and everything can be run even without internet access. An audit trail also logs every action taken by a coding agent.Vibe Checker does more than just check code. It's a multifunctional checker, or task-agnostic, and can audit any AI-generated system for functional errors and security vulnerabilities. Law firms can use it to summarise case files and contracts; researchers and policy analysts can use it to verify their database queries; finance departments can check their tax filings; hospital clinicians can manage their patient records; and banks and insurers can double-check their regulatory submissions.Privacy is essential in all of these aforementioned applications, and Vibe Checker enables on-premise analysis with links and citations referring back to the original source of the information – in other words, no hallucinations.Plotnikov says that Inferara will clearly benefit from the 500,000 NTD prize money from the Best AI Awards. However, the most important reward is the valuable feedback from those working in the industry, telling them that what they are doing makes sense and has commercial value. The award will also help Inferara get its name out and allow them to approach and demonstrate their technology to potential partners; in fact, Inferara is currently in discussions with several companies in Taiwan. In particular, they are interested in working with Taiwan's semiconductor and chip industry, which can provide the hardware supply chain for their product.In the next few months, they plan to deploy Vibe Checker to several companies who will serve as beta-testers, including several Taiwanese companies. They also intend to establish a legal entity in Taiwan, and have plans to work with the Centre of Industry Accelerator and Patent Strategy (IAPS) at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.The Best AI Awards celebrate global excellence in artificial intelligence and IC design, welcoming submissions from innovative companies and brilliant student teams. Following the success of the 2026 edition—advised by the MOEA, organized by DoIT, and executed by TCA—the prestigious competition is officially transitioning into an annual tradition.Offering substantial grand prizes and unmatched industry exposure, the countdown to Best AI Awards 2027 has already begun. Details on the next submission cycle, prize tiers, and eligibility rules will be released soon. Connect with us on LinkedIn for the latest official updates and application alerts.

Pursuing a PhD might have been the most lucrative decision that Tomasz Matusiak has ever taken.Whilst studying at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland's third-largest city, he developed chemical sensors made from ceramic materials based on microplasma generators, and electrical components made from a paste of glass and graphite. Now, Matusiak is using this research to solve a bottleneck that plagues the cutting edge of AI development: moving data between where it is stored in memory and where it is handled in the processing unit (for example, the central processing unit [CPU], which handles arithmetic and logical operations; or more specialised graphics processing units [GPUs], which handle computer graphics and digital images) wastes both time and (electrical) power. This limits the extent to which AI models can be scaled up and, of course, harms the environment.What if one could perform all of the computational tasks right where the data are stored? Matusiak thinks his material can do this, and he has started a company, SemiQa, and produced a system inspired by the human brain, the Analog Neural Network (ANN). Unlike conventional chips, which can reach 80°C and require a cooling system, his ANN system only reaches a maximum of 40°C. SemiQa's goal since its inception at the start of 2025 has been to conquer the universe of data centres, replacing their graphic cards (and the GPUs that power these graphic cards) with ANNs.Matusiak wants to bring back analog processing for its computational advantages. He uses the analogy of a train ride through the countryside. One might look outside the window and see a forest pass one by, followed by a short section alongside a river, before heading back into the forest again. A human brain – the analog system – would see a forest and then not think about it again until it sees a change in the environment (the river), and then once again not actively register the river again until the river has been replaced by the forest. It only processes the changes.But a digital system would constantly process what is outside the window. Analog processing thus saves on energy as it doesn’t process when there hasn't been any change.Likewise, digital processing might allocate a large number of bits to a small integer – for example, even though the number 5 can be expressed in binary with just three bits (101), it might be stored in an 8-bit or a 16-bit structure, where most of the surplus bits are zeroes. Many of the operations performed on these small integers will also result in small integers, so most of the leading zeroes will not change. A lot of memory is wasted.Analog processing can get around this problem by simply storing the 5 in a memory cell as a 5 instead of in eight memory cells as 00000101. (Analog memory cells, unlike digital memory cells, can take on more values than just 0 and 1.)The neural approach is based on a special electrical component called a memristor (short for memory resistor). A traditional resistor follows Ohm's Law, which states that the current (the rate at which electric charge flows) through a conductor is proportional to the difference in voltage (or the difference in electric potential energy, or the work it would take to move a unit of charge provided by, for instance, a battery) across that conductor. Mathematically, Ohm's law is V= IR, where V stands for the voltage, I for the current, and R for the resistance of the conductor, a proportionality constant that indicates how difficult it is for charge to move. The higher the resistance, the lower the current (for a given level of voltage).In a traditional resistor, the resistance doesn't vary with current (or voltage). In a memristor, though, the resistance depends not just on the current (or voltage) but also on the past levels of current running through it (or voltage controlling it). In other words, if the voltage goes up and then goes back down to its earlier level, the current and resistance might not return to their original levels. This ability to take on a range of values of resistance also mean that the memristor can be analog – in other words, that it can represent a range of values and not just a 0 or a 1.In addition to its superior thermal properties, SemiQa's ANN1000 is more power-efficient than other chips, being able to carry out more than 30 TOPS (or 30 trillion operations per second) per Watt of power; standard GPUs or NPUs (neural processing units, which are specialised for AI applications) can only carry out 1-2 TOPS per Watt. (The chip consumes 2.5 Watts of power, and so can carry out roughly 75 TOPS.)It is also naturally faster – ANN1000's latency (the time delay between when the processor requests something from memory to when the processor retrieves it) is 50 times shorter than that of a conventional GPU or NPU.The next step is, of course, commercial-scale production of their chips. They already demonstrated a proof-of-concept of their memristive technology at last year's SEMICON Taiwan, an annual trade show and Asia's largest semiconductor event. They will now create a neural network on silicon and hope to have a product-ready chip tailored to specific applications by the end of 2027. The memristive material, a mixture of organic and inorganic parts, is compatible with CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology, which is commonly used in foundries to fabricate chips. Matusiak envisions SemiQa's chips in mission-critical applications where efficient power consumption and processing is highly advantageous. These include autonomous systems, such as drones to be used in war and marine robots. Electric cars can also benefit: GPUs currently account for roughly half the cost of driverless vehicles, and replacing conventional GPUs with SemiQa's chips could reduce the price for consumers whilst maintaining manufacturers' margins. SemiQa also plans to add B2B applications such as data centres to the aforementioned B2C applications. They will tackle this through the ANN2000, a matrix of a thousand smaller ANN1000s.The prize money from the Best AI Awards pales in comparison to the 3 million EUR in pre-seed funding that SemiQa has already raised in Europe. But Matusiak is most grateful for the recognition that the judges have given his company's achievements since they started it just a little more than a year ago. This will also facilitate their collaboration with potential partners – in fact, they are already in talks with two local foundries to deepen their co-operation and scale up production of their chips."If you want something special, you need to work with the special forces," says Matusiak. "Everyone knows that Taiwan is the best in the world."SemiQa also plans to set up a branch office in Taiwan and will potentially hire two business developers in the country in the short term. They also know that they will need more funding, and are looking into perhaps raising money from Taiwanese investors. SemiQa already has a strong relationship with Taiwan, being a member of the Taiwan-Poland Chamber of Commerce and having signed memoranda of understanding with several Taiwanese businesses.The Best AI Awards celebrate global excellence in artificial intelligence and IC design, welcoming submissions from innovative companies and brilliant student teams. Following the success of the 2026 edition—advised by the MOEA, organized by DoIT, and executed by TCA—the prestigious competition is officially transitioning into an annual tradition.Offering substantial grand prizes and unmatched industry exposure, the countdown to Best AI Awards 2027 has already begun. Details on the next submission cycle, prize tiers, and eligibility rules will be released soon. Connect with us on LinkedIn for the latest official updates and application alerts.