SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won has defended Samsung and SK's combined KRW4,755 trillion (approx. US$3.52 trillion) investment plans, arguing that South Korea cannot keep pace in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race without committing unprecedented amounts of capital.

Terafab, the chipmaking venture backed by Tesla and SpaceX, is reportedly planning memory output that would rival the world's largest DRAM maker. Japanese and Korean equipment and materials suppliers are already being courted to help build it, though suppliers and analysts question whether the schedule and the demand will hold.

Innodisk said AI-related applications generated more than 40% of its revenue as demand for high-end AI server memory and storage lifted third-quarter results. The Taiwanese industrial memory maker is expanding into the cloud service provider, AI server supply chain, and humanoid robotics markets, highlighting how artificial intelligence is reshaping technology markets worldwide.

Wireless communications company Climax Technology's third-quarter 2026 gross margin came under pressure from rising memory and key component costs, as well as delayed product validation. The company's board approved its third-quarter consolidated financial report on November 6.

Peter Shu, chairman of Taiwanese memory module maker Transcend, expects DRAM and NAND Flash prices to plateau after stabilising in the third quarter of 2026. Further price increases appear limited, but declines remain unlikely, with DRAM still in short supply while NAND Flash availability has stabilised.

Memory module maker Adata reported October 2026 consolidated revenue of NT$17.06 billion (US$521.6 million), up 8.5% month-over-month and 282.3% year-over-year, marking its third-highest monthly revenue on record. However, year-end customer inventory adjustments are expected to push fourth-quarter revenue below the third quarter, while revenue for the first 10 months of 2026 reached NT$134.37 billion, up 222.7% year-over-year. Adata expects its full-year 2026 operating performance to continue climbing.

This week's coverage highlights accelerating competition across AI infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and advanced memory. Sweden launched the NVIDIA-based Sferical One supercomputer as leaders urged transformational AI adoption. DRAM makers remain divided over 4F-squared scaling, while CXMT reported sharply higher revenue and outlined 2027 growth plans. Panasonic's Taiwan plant suffered a fatality-risking explosion, Musk may reconsider Terafab control, SK Hynix expanded its AI investment portfolio, and MediaTek hired former Intel packaging chief Navid Shahriari.

According to an official statement, Nvidia's board has opened an independent investigation into reports that founder and CEO Jensen Huang was targeted in a foreign intelligence effort. The move puts the leadership of the world's most closely watched AI chipmaker under formal review just as lawmakers in both US parties press for answers about China's access to sensitive American technology.

The boom in AI demand has triggered a global memory crunch, creating persistent supply shortages and price hikes. The market is currently dominated by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology. While China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has expanded its mass-production capabilities rapidly, US export controls and cybersecurity concerns continue to prevent it from competing directly in the US against American and South Korean rivals.

Solidigm, a subsidiary of SK Hynix, is considering building a NAND flash wafer fab in the US. Funding and the investment timeline have yet to be settled, but DIGITIMES Intelligence believes the project is highly likely to move forward, given AI-driven storage demand and the prospect of US government support.

DIGITIMES observes that as large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI development become increasingly widespread, it is driving not only significant growth in data center CPU demand but also a sharp surge in key-value cache (KV cache) storage requirements. As DRAM and HBM capacity face severe supply shortages, demand for data center SSDs is rising rapidly.

China's Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) plans to source as much as 70% of the manufacturing equipment for its fourth NAND flash factory from domestic suppliers, a substantial increase over the share at its existing operations as the company expands into advanced memory for AI and data centers.

Qualcomm has completed initial hardware validation of its high-bandwidth compute (HBC) memory architecture, which will form a key part of its next-generation Dragonfly data-center AI accelerators. The company aims to deliver a lower-cost, more energy-efficient alternative to sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) for AI inference workloads requiring high bandwidth and large buffers.

Samsung Electronics plans to begin structural work at its P5 Fab 2 facility in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, in January 2027, accelerating its memory capacity expansion as chip shortages are expected to persist through 2028, DealSite reported.

YMTC's parent company, CCSH Corporation, had planned to raise CNY33 billion (approx. US$4.93 billion) through an IPO on Shanghai's STAR Market to finance production-line upgrades and next-generation memory research. However, the strategic placement process, originally expected to begin between late October and early November 2026, has reportedly slowed.

SK Hynix's US-based artificial intelligence (AI) investment arm, HYAICO Corporation, has acquired a stake in AI infrastructure provider Penguin Solutions from an SK Telecom affiliate for US$377.16 million, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expanding their high-value NAND flash portfolios to meet growing demand for high-performance, high-capacity enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs). The proliferation of AI agents and long-context services is increasing the need for key-value (KV) caching, prompting both companies to develop next-generation SSDs and tiered memory technologies to reuse AI computation results more efficiently.

Revenue from conventional DDR and LPDDR memory grew faster than that from high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in the third quarter of 2026, as global DRAM revenue surged 369% year over year to nearly US$200 billion, according to Counterpoint Research.

Addressing Taiwan's declining birth rate and the semiconductor sector's expanding demand for elite expertise, Macronix International Chairman Miin Wu has announced plans to donate at least US$2 million alongside his wife to establish a top talent development fund at his alma mater, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). The initiative aims to partner with Stanford University to select one top NCKU student annually for advanced studies in the US, connecting Taiwan's next generation of technology leaders with cutting-edge global insights.

The Democrats' sweeping victory in the November 2026 US midterm elections, securing control of both chambers of Congress, has prompted South Korean industries to reassess the implications for investment, trade, and technology policy. With South Korea and Taiwan both heavily dependent on semiconductors, AI, and electronics, Washington's policy direction carries significant consequences for their technology sectors.

Micron has paused construction of a new cleanroom at its Fab 11E site in Taoyuan, Taiwan, since mid-October 2026, according to semiconductor supply chain sources. The company recently introduced a new quarterly bonus program tied to profits, but it still hasn't settled its dispute with the local union in Taoyuan, and no restart date has been set.

Memory prices have surged for several consecutive quarters, leaving consumer applications grappling with cooling buying interest and weak demand. Kioxia has taken a more conservative view of the next quarter, while suppliers say demand remains but NAND prices can no longer rise, marking a turning point after roughly 18 months of gains driven by AI demand.

Beijing has instructed top securities firms and investment banks to pause initial public offerings and restrict large-scale share sales by major shareholders. Reporting by The Wall Street Journal reveals that the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued "window guidance" to slow equity supply and stem a prolonged market sell-off.

Apple's memory requirements for its new Apple Intelligence features have sparked debate after the launch of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, with some older or lower-spec devices excluded from on-device AI functions and local models consuming substantial storage. The 2024 entry-level M4 iPad Pro, priced at nearly US$1,000 and equipped with only 8GB of memory, cannot run some of the latest on-device Siri AI features, while the later-released iPad Air can.

SK Hynix's sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) yield has reportedly reached the mid-60% range, the highest in the industry. Analysts say improved yield has lifted production efficiency, allowing the company to expand server DRAM supply even as it concentrates capacity on HBM, a trend also reflected in the growth of its DRAM capacity disclosed in its financial results for the third quarter of 2026.