Speaking at DIGITIMES' "AI on Chips: Semiconductor Industry Outlook Forum," MediaTek senior director Bor-Sung Liang said AI development is shifting from individual large language models (LLMs) toward collaborative teams of AI agents with different roles and capabilities. He also revisited the seven-layer AI architecture he previously proposed, contrasting it with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's five-layer "cake."

The Autonomous Mobile Robot Alliance (AMRA), formed by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute and industry, academia, and research partners, has released a new standard that adds legged robots to its testing framework. The update aims to speed commercialization and deployment of autonomous mobile robots by giving manufacturers and buyers a unified way to assess performance across real-world environments.

India's semiconductor strategy is entering a more demanding phase, shifting from attracting fabs and assembly plants toward building the capabilities needed to sustain them. From wafer yields and labor rules to materials, equipment, rare earth magnets and emerging technologies, the country is expanding its ambitions as it seeks a deeper role in the global chip supply chain.

The AI semiconductor investment boom is increasingly spilling over into the materials supply chain. South Korea's major semiconductor materials suppliers broadly improved profitability in the second quarter of 2026, as stronger demand for advanced materials drove sharp operating profit growth. With customers expected to expand capacity from 2027 onward, the sector could see another wave of revenue growth.

Taiwan's Executive Yuan approved a larger 2027 technology budget of NT$229.2 billion (approx. US$7.2 billion), an increase of NT$25.9 billion from 2026, as the government also raised funding for the Ten Major AI Infrastructure Projects to NT$40.6 billion. The move came as Premier Cho said Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) needs more space and asked the National Science and Technology Council to study a new TTA location in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (BSTP).

Beyond established players such as Unitree Robotics, AgiBot and UBTech Robotics, a new wave of challengers is emerging quickly in China's humanoid robot sector. Among them is Galbot, which, despite being only three years old, closed a CNY2.5 billion (approx. US$350 million) funding round in March 2026 that lifted its post-money valuation above CNY20 billion. It is also the only embodied AI company that investor CATL has backed twice, and has vaulted into the first tier of China's humanoid robot makers.

Taiwan's IC design industry is set to keep growing strongly in 2026, with revenue expected to rise 10%, driven mainly by companies involved in AI and AI ASIC projects such as MediaTek, Global Unichip Corporation (GUC), Alchip, Phison, and Silicon Motion, DIGITIMES analyst Jim Chien said.

ASIC and GPU shipments will reach a "golden cross" in 2027, with ASIC shipments expected to surpass GPU shipments for the first time at 15.3 million units, DIGITIMES Intelligence analyst Stella Weng said. She also said AI is driving a "qualitative change" in memory architecture inside AI servers.

Challenges around co-packaged optics (CPO) remain unresolved, but they have not slowed the rapid rise of 800G and 1.6T silicon photonics, DIGITIMES analyst Kiwi Hsu said on August 20 at a semiconductor industry forum in Taipei. He said demand for AI cluster interconnects continues to expand, driving exponential growth in the output value of optical communications.

For all the extraordinary progress made by artificial intelligence, the physical world remains stubbornly difficult to automate.