Merck did not begin in a laboratory, but in a neighborhood pharmacy that still opens every day to fill prescriptions for local residents. The Engel Pharmacy in central Darmstadt, Germany, founded in 1668, has operated for 358 years and is the company's starting point.

SmartSens is signaling stronger first-half 2026 growth, a development that may matter to investors tracking global demand for image sensors used in security cameras, smartphones, and vehicles. The company said revenue and profit are likely to rise, reflecting broader adoption of AI-driven hardware across consumer and industrial markets worldwide.

The humanoid robot industry is converging on a "big brain, small brain" architecture, with AI compute shifting from the cloud to the edge, and even to hands, feet, and other endpoints. DIGITIMES Intelligence predicts that Nvidia's CUDA will keep it dominant in the robot "big brain" layer for now, but automotive chipmakers and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) vendors can still target the "small brain" and endpoint edge-compute market to break into the humanoid robot ecosystem.

High-NA EUV lithography is becoming the semiconductor equipment industry's next major battleground as demand rises for more advanced chips used in artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and mobile devices. Trumpf, a key supplier to ASML, says higher laser power, faster tool output, and closer coordination with chip designers will determine how quickly the technology becomes mainstream.

On a recent podcast, DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin reviewed two major updates in the chip industry: Intel's Ireland fab expansion and rising US scrutiny of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as both South Korean chipmakers expand memory capacity at home. He also assessed whether Intel's revival is real, saying that its production scale-up and yield will ultimately be the deciding factors.

The European Commission has approved EUR659 million in German state aid for four semiconductor facilities, a move that could affect supply chains used in cars, industrial equipment, and electronics worldwide. The backing is intended to widen European chip-making capacity, reduce dependencies, and support more resilient global technology production.

South Korea's technology policies—including the two semiconductor strategies discussed previously and the broader K-Moonshot initiative introduced more recently—have been drafted by different government bodies, including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), the Presidential Office, and the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT). Yet they share several common characteristics.

Nanotechnology is increasingly seen as a key enabler in the AI era, with competition broadening from semiconductors, manufacturing to home appliances. At Nano Korea 2026 held in Goyang, South Korea, Samsung Electronics again highlighted its integrated semiconductor solutions, while the LG Group moved beyond home appliances to showcase its deployment in semiconductor equipment and materials.

Chinese foreign interference in the Netherlands' strategic industries should be treated as a systemic, long-term threat rather than a series of isolated incidents, according to "Beyond Borders," a report published under the China Knowledge Network (CKN) and written by analysts at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS). The study warns that while individual acts of espionage, coercion, or influence may look manageable on their own, their aggregate effect risks eroding the Netherlands' technological edge, economic independence, and strategic autonomy.

As AI accelerators and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) packages grow larger and more complex, substrate technology is becoming a new constraint in advanced packaging. Organic substrates remain widely used, but rising demand for high-density interconnects, lower signal loss, and better dimensional stability is pushing glass substrates closer to commercial adoption.