VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (VSMC), the joint venture between Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and NXP Semiconductors, opened its 12-inch wafer fab in Tampines, Singapore, on September 28.
Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) has launched a joint cybersecurity audit initiative aiming to reduce repeated inspections on vendors that provide the government with IT services, while strengthening government information security. MODA will expand the joint audit program in 2027.
OpenAI said it detected and blocked an organized adversarial distillation attack, with some activity linked to Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI. The company said it first spotted the effort on July 1 and saw a peak on July 24 and 25, when it detected about 16,000 related requests from more than 4,000 users.
Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics are redesigning how memory is packaged with flagship smartphone processors, as rising chip performance puts greater pressure on the limited cooling capacity of mobile devices.
China Rare Earth Innovation Technology and Beijing-based Direct Drive Tech signed a strategic cooperation agreement on September 29 to jointly develop high-performance magnetic materials for direct-drive motors, including neodymium-iron-boron magnets, flux-concentrating rings, and radially oriented magnetic rings, linking upstream rare-earth resources with robot drive modules.
China's humanoid robot market continued to expand rapidly in the first half of 2026, with shipments exceeding 19,000 units and accounting for about 77.9% of the global total. Chinese suppliers, meanwhile, represented more than 95% of worldwide shipments, underscoring China's position as both the largest humanoid robot market and the industry's dominant source of supply.
The drone market is expanding beyond military applications as commercial demand gains momentum. Following the rollout of drone logistics services for Taiwan's outlying islands, industry players see firefighting, disaster response, and inspection in areas that are difficult or dangerous for humans to access as among the first commercial applications poised for adoption.
Singapore has launched the SG Semiconductor brand to strengthen its semiconductor profile and attract talent, aiming to create a globally recognizable industry identity beyond its existing R&D system. Yee-Chia Yeo, A*STAR vice president for innovation and enterprise, said the initiative is not just a website or information platform, but a way to connect Singapore's wafer manufacturing, equipment, materials, research institutes, and universities into a more visible ecosystem.
Apple's entry into India's payments market gives its device users a new way to pay by card, but its initial reach will depend on bank and merchant integrations in a country where a domestic real-time system already dominates digital transactions. The service launched on September 30 for eligible Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit cardholders, placing Apple's wallet alongside, rather than replacing, India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
Samsung Electronics' HBM4 ramp is giving its foundry business a timely boost, as rising demand for the memory product translates into more work for the company's 4nm logic lines.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended the Korea Society's annual dinner in New York on September 28 local time and received the 2026 Van Fleet Award, with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won on hand to congratulate him. The appearance underscored how Nvidia's ties with South Korea's semiconductor makers have expanded from memory supply into AI manufacturing, creating a two-way relationship in products and technology.
The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) posted revenue of NT$1.77 trillion (approx. US$55.66 billion) in the first half of 2026, up 28.57% from the same period in 2025. Growth was mainly driven by the rapid development of the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, coupled with Taiwan's leading role in the semiconductor industry, enabling the science park to maintain steady expansion momentum and further consolidate its position at the core of the global high-tech supply chain.
Yee-Chia Yeo, vice president for innovation and enterprise at A*STAR, returned to Singapore in 2022 and has since turned years of industry experience into a strategy for advancing the city-state's semiconductor R&D and industry development. He is helping build a semiconductor model that differs from Taiwan's, with a focus on linking research more closely to manufacturing needs.
Following the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, market observers broadly agreed that the talks yielded few surprises. The meeting produced limited substantive progress on economic, trade, or diplomatic fronts, making significant shifts in high-stakes technology policy even less likely.
Digital transformation integrator ChainSea Information Integration plans to list on Taiwan's over-the-counter (OTC) market in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the process expected to take about a month. The listing would make ChainSea Taiwan's first OTC-listed company focused primarily on business process outsourcing (BPO).