Murata Manufacturing announced plans to invest around JPY1 trillion (US$6.3 billion) in expanding multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) capacity by 2030. Booming demand from data centers and AI applications has pushed up orders for MLCC makers. MLCCs are a crucial component in managing power demand.

Tong Hsing Electronic Industries (THEIL) outlined the latest developments and market trends across its four major product lines of optical communications, ceramic substrates, new semiconductor materials, and image sensors, during an earnings call on October 30.

As AI data centers expand, Taiwan is facing challenges in securing power supply, battery backup, and cooling systems, with the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) requiring about two years to build dedicated 161 kV high-voltage lines. The island's limited land and growing industrial and population demand in northern Taiwan are raising concerns over whether electricity availability will keep pace with the expansion of AI computing capacity.

South Korean energy and engineering companies are positioning themselves for the emerging small modular reactor (SMR) market, with SK Innovation (SKI) seeking to build expertise through US demonstration and early commercial projects before pursuing domestic deployment, while Samsung C&T is focusing on modular construction to shorten project timelines, reduce costs, and accelerate commercialization.

Chinese AI chipmaker Iluvatar CoreX has released benchmarks showing its next-generation Tiangai 300 general-purpose GPU outperforming Nvidia's H200 in selected large language model (LLM) inference, long-context processing and multimodal generation workloads.

Foxconn is expanding its AI capabilities into clinical workflows, medical robotics and healthcare manufacturing, working with hospitals, equipment makers and technology partners to build an integrated smart healthcare ecosystem. Its strategy follows an ecosystem-to-clinical deployment framework spanning products, edge-cloud computing and software-hardware integration, reflecting Nvidia's five-layer AI architecture.

MediaTek's latest earnings call focused heavily on its data-center ASIC business, as CEO Rick Tsai and CFO David Ku addressed market rumors about delays to its second AI accelerator ASIC project, EMIB packaging yields, and the identity of its second customer. The company said its major customer's second-generation project remains on track for mass production in the first quarter of 2028, while the second customer will also begin contributing revenue in 2028.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding global semiconductor demand, prompting Taiwan and South Korea to shift from straightforward competition toward cooperation as the AI chip supply chain grows more complex. Colley Hwang, chairman and CEO of DIGITIMES, said Taiwan's semiconductor success stems not only from TSMC, but also from an ecosystem built on specialization, industrial clusters, talent, and capital markets.

As AI PC configurations reach new technological heights amid a broader push toward higher-spec machines, the market is moving steadily toward wider adoption of AI-capable hardware.

Lite-On Technology will continue increasing capital expenditure in 2027 as cloud service providers (CSPs) pour money into the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure race, president Anson Chiu said. He warned that CSPs that stop investing to secure market share will pay an even higher price for falling behind in the irreversible AI era.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with executives from Samsung Group and SK Group during a brief visit to South Korea on October 31, as tightening memory supplies and growing commitments to major AI customers raise the stakes for the company's semiconductor and data center partnerships.