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Tesla boosts Berlin output with US$250M battery cell expansion

Electric Vehicles

Samsung reportedly speeds up 3D NAND, packaging and substrate plans

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AI server ODMs face margin pressure as memory costs rise

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Samsung foundry sees rebound prospects on 4nm projects and HBM4

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May 12 SEMICONDUCTORS

Intel's revival secret: Suppliers with TSMC's stamp of approval

May 12 SEMICONDUCTORS

Apple, Qualcomm and MediaTek take different paths as TSMC capacity stays tight

May 12 SEMICONDUCTORS

Commentary: SEA semiconductor industry pivots towards AI as a strategic hub

SEMICON SEA 2026

SEMICON SEA 2026 took place from May 5-7 at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Center in Kuala Lumpur.

GaN patent fight between China and Europe extends beyond courtroom

As the global patent battle over gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors intensifies, a recent ruling by the US International Trade Commission has deepened the rivalry between Infineon Technologies and China's Innoscience while also underscoring how geopolitics is increasingly shaping the future of the power semiconductor industry.

Interview: Cyient Semiconductors CEO on Kinetic acquisition — why power is the new compute bottleneck

As the semiconductor industry grapples with the growing energy demands of artificial intelligence, Cyient Semiconductors is repositioning itself away from being a primarily semiconductor engineering and ASIC services provider and toward a more product-oriented hybrid model centered on intelligent power and proprietary semiconductor products.

ChipMOS 1Q26 earnings jump 186% on strong packaging and testing demand

Taiwanese outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services company ChipMOS Technologies reported strong growth in both revenue and profit for the first quarter of 2026. Net profit after tax for the quarter reached NT$505 million (approx. US$16.03 million), up 1% from the previous quarter and 186.37% from a year earlier, while earnings per share (EPS) came to NT$0.72, the highest in the past 10 quarters.

Samsung labor dispute rattles global supply chain

Samsung Electronics' escalating labor dispute has sparked global supply-chain concerns, with Apple and HP said to be warning they could exit the company's ecosystem. Suppliers, industry groups, and clients are now assessing contingency measures as mediation resumes, with potentially wide-ranging implications for production schedules, procurement stability, investor confidence, and the wider technology hardware market at large.

OpenAI launches US$4 billion deployment venture to accelerate enterprise AI adoption

OpenAI is expanding beyond AI model development and into enterprise implementation with the launch of the OpenAI Deployment Company, a new business unit backed by more than US$4 billion in initial funding that will help organizations integrate AI into core operations and workflows.

Commentary: Musk's xAI exit shows Anthropic's AI strength

On May 6, Elon Musk was in several places at once: confronting OpenAI in court, announcing on X that xAI would no longer operate as an independent company, and handing over a large share of his AI compute to another AI firm, Anthropic. Three years after Musk gathered 12 researchers from DeepMind, Google, and OpenAI to found xAI with the stated goal to "understand the universe," he has now moved to shut it down.

Nvidia's copper-to-fiber AI shift boosts China's optical plays

Nvidia is deepening its partnership with US fiber-optics maker Corning, with plans to replace copper cable connections with optical fiber in next-generation rack-scale AI systems. The move is drawing renewed attention to China's role in the global optical communications supply chain.

FocalTech forecasts return to growth as product mix improves

FocalTech Systems said its business is expected to bottom out in the first quarter of 2026, with a recovery already underway and a return to growth in both revenue and profitability beginning in the second quarter, according to remarks made at an investor conference on May 8.

Taiwan targets three key sectors in upcoming 6G era

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has launched a new next-generation communications program under its A+ Industrial Innovative R&D Program, aiming to steer company research toward 6G networks, non-terrestrial networks (NTN), and all-photonics networks (APN). The move follows the Executive Yuan's Five Trusted Industry Sectors push launched in May 2024, and its Next-Generation Communications Technology Development Program announced in July 2025.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Taiwan EV charging rollout slows as grid and soil issues delay new sites

Rising international oil prices driven by conflict in the Middle East could further support electric vehicle sales in 2026 and boost demand for charging stations, according to charging operators. But resolving land-use and grid-construction bottlenecks has become a key challenge as operators compete for a share in Taiwan's EV charging market.

China NEV retail penetration tops 60% in April as oil prices dent gasoline car demand

China's retail penetration rate for new-energy vehicles, including battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, reached 61.4% in April, the highest on record and the first time it crossed 60%, according to the China Passenger Car Association. The surge from 52% in March coincided with rising international oil prices linked to the Middle East conflict, which supply chain sources said accelerated the shift away from gasoline cars.

Taiwan, Germany extend joint EV battery R&D to 2029

Taiwan and Germany signed a Science and Technology Arrangement (STA) in 2023 to promote joint research in semiconductors, hydrogen energy, artificial intelligence (AI), and other fields. Officials from Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) recently attended a lithium battery cooperation workshop in Dresden, Germany, where both sides confirmed continued support for a bilateral advanced battery research and development program from 2026 to 2029.

Taipower new president focuses on AI power demand, grid resilience

Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) is entering a new wave of generation system installations at its Tunghsiao, Talin, and Hsinta Phase II plants. New president Kuo Tien-Ho, who took office on May 11, 2026, said 13 gas-fired combined-cycle units are scheduled to come online over the next 10 years to meet surging electricity demand from AI and other emerging technologies.

Coupang Taiwan details local response to 2025 breach affecting 200,000 accounts, launches bug bounty

Coupang Taiwan’s chief information security officer spoke at CYBERSEC 2026 in Taiwan to detail a November 2025 customer data breach that exposed information from about 33.7 million accounts globally and impacted roughly 200,000 accounts in Taiwan. The executive said the firm strengthened technical defenses and external mechanisms and formally launched Taiwan’s first Public Bug Bounty Program in partnership with HackerOne to institutionalize vulnerability reporting.

Pegatron chair urges nuclear fuel preorders as Taiwan weighs plant restart

As tensions between the US and Iran heighten global energy supply concerns, Taiwan's plan to restart the Kuosheng and Maanshan Nuclear Power Plants has drawn fresh attention. Although the Maanshan plant has yet to pass safety inspections, Taiwan Power (Taipower) has reportedly considered preordering fuel rods in advance — a move Pegatron chairman Tzu-hsien Tung supports to avoid a power supply gap, particularly as Taiwan seeks to sustain economic growth amid the ongoing AI arms race.

Compeq emerges as key supplier in AI and low-orbit satellite boom

Compeq Manufacturing said first-quarter 2026 revenue reached a record high for the period, driven by sustained demand from major US customers for smartphones, notebooks, and low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite products, as well as growing shipments tied to AI data centers.

Taiwan's Syncmold bets on the satellite internet boom to power its next growth cycle

Syncmold, a precision mechanical components manufacturer, is positioning itself more deeply within the fast-expanding low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite supply chain, betting that space infrastructure will become a new long-term growth engine for the company.

Pentagon deploys 100,000 AI agents, escalating algorithm warfare with China

The Pentagon has deployed more than 100,000 AI agents through its GenAI.mil platform, marking a broader shift toward algorithm-driven warfare and expanding the US military's push into AI-powered combat operations.

Innolux shares surge on reports of potential TSMC FOPLP partnership

Unlike AUO, which remained in the red in the first quarter of 2026, Innolux returned to operating profitability, posting net income of NT$1.79 billion (approx. US$56.9 million) for the quarter.

Fitipower eyes 2Q26 growth on OLED DDI ramp

Fitipower said revenue grew quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter of 2026, driven by electronic shelf labels (ESL), EPD, and other chip products such as T-Con, and the Taiwan DDI maker plans to raise prices on selected items as it prepares for further growth in the second quarter of 2026. The company is expanding across applications, products, and regions while developing new offerings to strengthen competitiveness amid global market uncertainty.

Himax targets 2026 rebound on auto DDI and AI glasses momentum

Himax Technologies said its revenue and profit in the first quarter of 2026 both came in at the upper end of its original financial forecasts, and it expects operations to trend higher over the next several quarters as new automotive projects enter mass production and non-driver ICs gain traction, particularly timing controllers (TCONs) and WiseEye AI. The Taiwan-based display driver IC (DDI) maker disclosed these results in its latest earnings report.

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