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Tuesday 16 December 2025
Dolphin Semiconductor shifts toward platform-led, mixed-signal IP in HCLTech collaboration
French semiconductor IP vendor Dolphin Semiconductor said its collaboration with HCLTech reflects growing demand for pre-optimized, platform-based system-on-chip development, as energy costs, time-to-market pressure, and design complexity rise.
Tuesday 16 December 2025
Baidu's Kunlunxin spinoff mirrors Google's TPU playbook
Baidu confirmed on December 7, 2025, that it is evaluating the spin-off and listing of its AI chip unit, Kunlunxin. This announcement came just one day before the US permitted H200 chip exports to China. Baidu cautioned that the plan is subject to regulatory approval and not guaranteed, tempering initial market enthusiasm.
Tuesday 16 December 2025
Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong meets with Lisa Su and Elon Musk to discuss potential collaboration
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong has returned to South Korea after a week-long business trip to the US. Lee reportedly met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Austin, Texas, with senior executives of Samsung's foundry division also present. It is also rumored that Lee met with AMD CEO Lisa Su to discuss HBM supply and foundry orders using advanced 2-nanometer process technology. These efforts are considered tactics to help Samsung regain leadership in AI semiconductors.
Tuesday 16 December 2025
SenseTime's Seko 2.0 ties AI video breakthrough to Cambricon chips, signaling China's multimodal push

SenseTime has released Seko 2.0, which it describes as the industry's first multi-episode video generation agent, marking a step beyond short AI clips toward longer, more coherent video content.

Tuesday 16 December 2025
South Korea lures global chip capital at COMEUP 2025 as Middle East investors step in

South Korea is emerging as a focal point for global semiconductor investment as domestic AI chip startups attract growing interest from Middle Eastern sovereign funds, underscoring a shift in where capital and talent are converging in the next phase of the chip industry.

Monday 15 December 2025
Qualcomm sharpens RISC-V influence with Ventana acquisition
Qualcomm's acquisition of Ventana Micro Systems signals a clear push to deepen its commitment to RISC-V and accelerate the maturation of the surrounding ecosystem.
Monday 15 December 2025
TASC partners with Itochu Taiwan to deepen compound semiconductor and smart medical ventures
Taiwan-Asia Semiconductor Corporation (TASC) is advancing its layout in compound semiconductors and non-invasive blood glucose monitoring technology through the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Itochu Taiwan. The agreement seeks to facilitate collaboration in these two sectors through the pooling of resources and semiconductor supply chains.
Monday 15 December 2025
Nvidia reportedly considers expanding H200 AI chip production amid potential surge in Chinese demand
Following the Trump administration's recent easing of export restrictions on Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, several Chinese technology firms, such as Alibaba and ByteDance, have reportedly expressed significant interest in placing large-scale orders. Nvidia is now evaluating whether to increase production capacity of the H200 chips to meet this potential surge in demand, according to Reuters, citing unnamed sources.
Monday 15 December 2025
Weekly news roundup: TSMC pauses Japan fab plans, Tesla Powerwall demand rises in Taiwan, Huawei flags AI oversupply risks
These are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories in the week of December 8 to December 14, 2025.
Monday 15 December 2025
The H200 gambit: Why China may buy less than Washington expects
The US government is rethinking the impact of Washington's decision to clear Nvidia's H200 exports to China after a Financial Times report suggested Beijing is prioritizing domestically developed AI chips.
Monday 15 December 2025
Intel reportedly to buy AI chip startup SambaNova, reviving governance questions over CEO ties
Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, reported that Intel Corp. is in advanced discussions to acquire artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems Inc. for about US$1.6 billion including debt, a move that could significantly bolster Intel's AI product portfolio while reigniting scrutiny over governance and potential conflicts of interest linked to its chief executive.
Monday 15 December 2025
Taiwan set for 2026 outperformance on AI, advanced chip orders

Global growth is poised to lose momentum. IMF forecasts show global GDP easing from 3.3% in 2024 to 3.2% in 2025 and 3.1% in 2026. China's growth is expected to slow from 5% to 4.8% and then to 4.2%, while India may dip from 6.6% to 6.2%. Taiwan remains an outlier, supported by strong AI and semiconductor investment and exports, with GDP projected at 7.37% in 2025. Continued strength in AI server exports could also lift its 2026 forecast of 3.54%.

Monday 15 December 2025
Samsung pushes new thermal packaging to win back Qualcomm and Apple

Samsung Electronics is positioning a proprietary thermal management technology for external clients as it seeks to reclaim foundry market share from TSMC. The South Korean company plans to offer its Heat Path Block solution to third-party chip designers after validating the system in its upcoming Exynos 2600 processor, according to local media reports.

Friday 12 December 2025
AI hardware landscape shifts from GPUs to NPUs as edge computing gains ground
As artificial intelligence (AI) transitions from cloud-centric operations to edge devices, the hardware that powers AI is undergoing significant change. While graphics processing units (GPUs) have long dominated both AI training and deployment, neural processing units (NPUs) are now emerging as a viable alternative, particularly for edge applications, according to Jeffrey Chen, vice president of product marketing at Kneron. Chen elaborated on these evolving trends at the recent Human-Machine Co-Creation New Era annual summit.
Friday 12 December 2025
VPEC will focus on optical components in 2026
AI data centers are seeing rapidly increasing demand for HPC and big data processing. The shift from traditional copper wiring to fiber optics boosts data transfer rates while lowering power consumption. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) epitaxy maker Visual Photonics Epitaxy Co. (VPEC) stated that while the smartphone market in 2026 is expected to remain flat or show slight growth, rising transmission efficiency requirements in AI data centers will drive planned equipment purchases and expanded capacity, making data centers the company's main growth driver for 2026.
Friday 12 December 2025
WT Microelectronics hits NT$1 trillion revenue on AI-driven data center, optical demand
AI trends have fueled strong demand for data center chips and optical communications, pushing IC distributor WT Microelectronics' cumulative revenue for the first 11 months of 2025 to NT$1.08 trillion (US$34.64 billion), officially surpassing the trillion-dollar mark.
Friday 12 December 2025
Broadcom forecasts surging AI chip demand after record fourth quarter results
Broadcom reported record revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, driven by soaring AI semiconductor demand, and issued an upbeat outlook for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 with expectations that AI chip revenue will double year over year.
Friday 12 December 2025
Broadcom confirms fifth ASIC customer as custom AI chip business doubles
Broadcom is rapidly scaling its custom AI chip business, with CEO Hock Tan detailing a US$73 billion AI backlog, major new ASIC customers, and multi-billion-dollar XPU orders. The company expects to accelerate AI revenue through fiscal year 2026 as hyperscalers expand large-scale model training and inference infrastructure.
Friday 12 December 2025
MediaTek shifts focus to automotive electronics as new growth frontier amid slowing smartphone demand
MediaTek is recalibrating its business strategy by targeting automotive electronics as a next major growth area, following a slowdown in smartphone-related revenue. The company has already embarked on a push into application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) tied to Google's TPUs, aiming to capture US$1 billion in ASIC revenue by 2026. Now, it forecasts that automotive electronics will emerge as another billion-dollar revenue stream within two to three years.
Thursday 11 December 2025
Nvidia says no concrete evidence yet in alleged DeepSeek GPU smuggling case
Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is under scrutiny for allegedly circumventing US export restrictions by illegally acquiring thousands of Nvidia's Blackwell architecture GPUs. Nvidia acknowledged the situation but said it had no concrete evidence and would investigate all available leads.
Thursday 11 December 2025
EU court cuts Intel antitrust fine to about EUR237 million
Intel has secured a reduction of nearly EUR140 million (approx. US$163.7 million) in its remaining EU antitrust penalty, though the bloc's second-highest court upheld the finding that the company abused its dominance in the x86 processor market, according to Reuters and Bloomberg.
Thursday 11 December 2025
MediaTek reports November revenue decline but maintains positive annual growth outlook
Taiwanese IC design company MediaTek announced its revenue for November 2025 at NT$46.896 billion (approx. US$1.51 billion), reflecting a 9.86% decrease from October but a 3.65% increase compared to November 2024. The fourth-quarter total reached NT$98.922 billion, narrowly missing the company's previously forecasted low-end target by about NT$4.3 billion.
Thursday 11 December 2025
SK Hynix reaps largest benefits from H200 export approval
US President Donald Trump has allowed Nvidia's H200 chips to be exported to China, benefiting Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. iNews24 and IT Chosun reported that with the high likelihood that Chinese AI companies will see increased chip demand, the US easing of restrictions is expected to boost H200 shipments. SK Hynix is reportedly the primary supplier of the fifth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM3E) used in the H200, meaning its supply volume will inevitably rise, making it the biggest beneficiary.
Thursday 11 December 2025
Qualcomm acquires Ventana Micro Systems to strengthen RISC-V CPU capabilities
Qualcomm has acquired Ventana Micro Systems Inc., a move aimed at bolstering its capabilities in the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) and custom CPU development. The acquisition integrates Ventana's expertise in RISC-V design into Qualcomm's ongoing efforts on its Oryon CPU technology.
Thursday 11 December 2025
Ta Liang PCB and advanced packaging orders surge, equipment lead times hit 6 months
PCB and semiconductor equipment manufacturer Ta Liang Technology reported a surge in orders as AI chip and AI server demand solidifies. Customers have been investing to expand capacity, driving demand for high-end CCD back-drilling machines, semiconductor advanced packaging measurement, and automated optical inspection (AOI) equipment to increase in 2025. This pushed cumulative revenue for the first 11 months of 2025 beyond the total for 2024, setting a record.