Nvidia and MediaTek have recently drawn market attention after Nvidia invested US$3.5 billion in MediaTek convertible bonds, expanding cooperation into custom AI chips, AI PCs, automotive, and data centers. But their overlap began more than 20 years ago, during competition in the PC chipset market, when MediaTek, ALi, ULi, and Nvidia were already connected.
As the silicon carbide (SiC) industry shifts from 6-inch to 8-inch wafer manufacturing, leading China-based substrate suppliers are taking a more disciplined approach to pricing and customer selection, seeking to protect margins and avoid a repeat of the severe price competition that has battered the 6-inch market.
After months of tight supply and sharp price increases in 2026, the global memory market is expected to see its supply-demand gap narrow significantly in 2027 as DRAM capacity expands and demand patterns shift, according to Beijing-based Sigmaintell Consulting. The consultancy expects the memory and broader semiconductor markets to continue growing through 2028, but forecasts a potential pullback in 2029 as evolving AI applications reshape demand.
China's leading DRAM maker, CXMT Corporation (CXMT), formerly known as ChangXin Memory Technologies, is reaping a windfall from price gains in general-purpose memory as the AI boom reshapes the market. In the second quarter of 2026, CXMT posted an operating margin of about 82% on an EBIT basis, ranking near the top among major memory vendors and underscoring how Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron's shift of more resources into HBM has made CXMT one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current price surge.
After mature-node price competition from 2023 to 2025, AI demand has spread from GPUs and HBM to power management ICs (PMICs), power components, networking chips and specialty processes. At the same time, aggressive price cutting by mature-node players in China has eased, pushing quotes for Taiwan foundries broadly higher since the start of 2026.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have rejected a proposal to prepay KRW25 trillion (approx. US$18.7 billion) in electricity bills, highlighting the financing challenge facing South Korea as it accelerates semiconductor expansion and the power infrastructure needed to support it.
