China's AI infrastructure build-out is rapidly lifting demand for domestic accelerators, giving Huawei, Alibaba's T-Head Semiconductor, Cambricon and Hygon a larger role in a market once dominated by Nvidia.

Participation in the Global Pavilion at the upcoming SEMICON Taiwan 2026 has reached a new high, with the number of participating countries climbing to 18 and the booth count surging from 62 in 2023 to 220 in 2026, an increase of more than 250%. Both metrics set new records, reflecting that amid rising artificial intelligence (AI) investment and the regionalization of supply chains, countries are moving faster to deepen cooperation with Taiwan's semiconductor industry.

China's research and academic community appears to be drifting away from international collaboration, even as the UK, Germany, and the US have steadily expanded cross-border partnerships in recent years. The contrast has drawn fresh attention after Moonshot AI's flagship 2026 model Kimi K3 and other Chinese technology products, including Unitree Robotics's H1 robot, prompted questions over how much of China's advanced innovation is truly homegrown.

Lightelligence is positioning optical interconnects, optical switching, and optical computing as the next foundation of AI infrastructure, arguing that the industry's biggest challenge has shifted from faster chips to moving data efficiently across increasingly larger GPU clusters.