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Thursday 30 July 2026
OpenAI's ChatGPT about to reach 1B weekly users as AI rivalry heats up
OpenAI's chatbot is about to reach a new milestone of 1 billion weekly users, according to internal company data. Although this target was intended to be hit by the end of 2025, it nevertheless remains among the fastest-growing online applications to hit that many users in the short time since the startup was founded.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Microsoft's AI buildout: 88 new data centers, broader model catalog, silicon gains

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella laid out how the company is scaling its AI infrastructure and platform to keep pace with demand. He outlined these plans during an earnings call on July 29, when he also announced record revenue above US$331 billion for fiscal year 2026 (ending on June 30), with Microsoft Cloud earnings surpassing US$214 billion and Azure earnings surpassing US$100 billion.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Qualcomm to supply compute chips for BMW's next-gen vehicles through 2030s
Qualcomm Technologies and BMW Group have signed a long-term agreement under which Qualcomm will supply compute silicon for BMW's next-generation digital cockpit and advanced driver assistance and automated driving systems. The deal, announced on July 29, extends the partnership through the next decade, although financial details of the agreement have not been revealed.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Italy, US to sign Pax Silica pact on AI, chip supply chains

Italy and the US are set to sign a cooperation agreement tied to the US-led Pax Silica initiative on July 31, as Rome expands efforts to secure critical raw materials and semiconductor supply chains.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Meta earnings series 2/2: Zuckerberg defends higher AI expenditure, outlines the path to returns

Meta Platforms' second-quarter results showed a widening gap between its fast-growing advertising business and the cost of building AI infrastructure. Free cash flow fell to US$784 million, while the company lifted the lower end of its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to US$130 billion.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Microsoft raises AI infrastructure spending outlook as Azure growth tops expectations

Microsoft reported stronger-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results, driven by accelerating Azure cloud growth and rising adoption of its AI products, reinforcing investor confidence that the company's heavy investments in AI are generating commercial returns. Robust guidance for the current quarter and continued enterprise demand also eased concerns over spending on AI infrastructure.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Meta earnings series 1/2: Revenue beats expectations, but AI spending crushes cash flow
Meta Platforms delivered stronger-than-expected second-quarter revenue, but weaker earnings, shrinking free cash flow and a cautious third-quarter outlook intensified investor scrutiny of its rapidly expanding AI infrastructure budget.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Qualcomm completes Modular acquisition to expand AI software platform
Qualcomm has completed its acquisition of Modular, strengthening its push into AI software that can run across devices, data centers, and edge systems worldwide. The deal could broaden access to more efficient generative and agentic AI tools, while intensifying competition in a fast-growing market shaping global computing infrastructure.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Arm's AI-driven data center growth offsets smartphone weakness, but softer handset outlook weighs on shares
Arm Holdings reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter results as demand for AI and data center chips lifted licensing and royalty revenue. However, the company's warning of slower smartphone royalty growth overshadowed its upbeat forecast, highlighting the challenge of balancing maturing handset markets with expanding AI opportunities.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Meta forecasts higher AI spending as legal costs weigh on profit despite strong revenue growth
Meta Platforms reported strong second-quarter revenue growth driven by its Family of Apps business, but lower profit and a higher spending outlook highlighted the mounting costs of its artificial intelligence (AI) expansion. The company's updated guidance and ongoing legal challenges prompted investor concerns over the pace of returns from its AI investments.
Thursday 30 July 2026
UMC, Intel advance 12nm process collab with no next-gen plans at this time
United Microelectronics (UMC) stated that its collaboration with Intel to develop a 12nm process is progressing smoothly. The process design kit (PDK) is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with tape-out scheduled to begin in 2027. Full-scale mass production and revenue contribution are expected to come in 2028.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Research Insight: German automakers shift strategy as AI powers next-gen cars

Global automakers are facing slower market growth, the rapid rise of Chinese carmakers, and sustained EV investment, with Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz under strain in recent years. While German automakers still lead the global auto industry, revenue and profitability have come under broad pressure over the past two years as competition shifts from volume growth to product value and operating efficiency.

Thursday 30 July 2026
AMD's Helios gains ground in challenge to Nvidia's CUDA
AI infrastructure competition is intensifying, but the market is no longer focusing only on GPU performance and is instead re-evaluating the entire computing system. For AMD, the chance to turn software improvements into market share is now emerging, but two hurdles remain: whether ROCm can run stably in large clusters and whether Helios can enter mass production and ship on time.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Interview: Meet the Taiwan firm that wants to be the world's next big supplier of smart-vehicle 'eyes' with Japan— without China
As automotive electronics, electrification, software-defined vehicles (SDVs) and AI-defined vehicles (AIDVs) reshape the global auto industry, Taiwan's Ken Sean Industries is accelerating efforts to build a non-China automotive supply chain in partnership with leading Taiwanese electronics companies and Japanese automakers.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Nvidia invests US$1B in Naver's sovereign AI push
Nvidia plans to invest in South Korean internet and cloud giant Naver through a US$1 billion third-party share issue for about a 4.5% stake, a move that could make it Naver's third-largest shareholder if the deal closes and treasury shares are canceled. The two companies are also teaming up with global investment firm Brookfield on an AI infrastructure plan worth as much as US$10 billion to turn Naver's GAK Sejong data center into the core of South Korea's sovereign AI factory initiative.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Taiwan launches first robotics competition to benchmark service robots for real-world deployment

Artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding the capabilities of robotics. Yet while industrial robots have become commonplace on factory floors, service robots operating alongside people in hospitals, homes and other public environments still lack widely accepted benchmarks for real-world performance.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Robotics makers race to commercialize dexterous hands for Physical AI

The robotics industry is moving from AI demonstrations to commercial deployments as vendors push Physical AI into factories, logistics, retail, food service and homes. The shift centers on whether robots can be built as repeatable products that customers will buy, rather than as machines that simply walk, recognize environments or follow commands.

Thursday 30 July 2026
China's robot vacuum makers race ahead as innovation cycle outpaces smartphones

While humanoid robots have yet to achieve meaningful economies of scale, service robots have already entered an intensely competitive phase.

Thursday 30 July 2026
Less hardware, smarter AI: how a Taiwan startup is making smart glasses weightless

A Taiwan startup says it has found a way to hide advanced eye-tracking technology inside what looks like an ordinary pair of glasses — using just one camera and a single LED light source.

Wednesday 29 July 2026
Coretronic Intelligent Logistics plans AI logistics demo at AI Wave Show 2026
Coretronic Intelligent Logistics said generative AI and agentic AI technology are pushing smart logistics beyond process automation and toward autonomous decision-making. The company said it will present next-generation industrial AI applications under the theme "AI-driven smart logistics and manufacturing automation" at AI Wave Show 2026.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
Faraday lifts revenue on ASIC and MCU demand as AI delays push projects back
Faraday Technology reported stronger-than-expected second quarter 2026 results, with consolidated revenue rising to NT$3.31 billion and net profit reaching NT$200 million. The ASIC design services and silicon IP provider said the improvement came from higher volume production in ASIC and microcontroller (MCU) businesses, along with continued growth in intellectual property licensing.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
Aewin expands AMD EPYC 9006 server lineup for AI, storage and enterprise workloads

Aewin Technologies has introduced a four-product server lineup built around AMD's newly launched EPYC 9006 processor family, targeting AI, general-purpose computing and storage workloads. The launch comes as demand for server architectures continues to fragment across training, inference, enterprise IT and data storage use cases.

Wednesday 29 July 2026
Nvidia's Jensen Huang warns US officials about banning Chinese open-weight models

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang once again voiced his support for open-weight and open-source AI, a form of model that has caught official attention in Washington after the release of the powerful Kimi K3 model from Chinese startup Moonshot AI. His comments added another voice to the ongoing debate over closed-source versus open-source approaches as the US considers restrictions on Chinese AI.

Wednesday 29 July 2026
China's GenAI race shifts to open source ecosystems
The global GenAI race has remained intense, with major US players including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI investing heavily. But with Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI launching Kimi K3, a new large language model (LLM) with multimodal and long-context reasoning capabilities, along with the rapid rise of DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen, and Z.ai's GLM models, China is increasingly outlining a new competitive model centered on open-source AI ecosystems and large-scale commercial deployment.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
White House reportedly approaches final framework for reviewing frontier models
The US government is said to be close to creating a final version of a voluntary framework for evaluating AI companies' advanced models before they are released to the public. A finalized framework could clear up weeks of uncertainty, but for now many questions about it remain, such as the exact review process, what counts as a frontier model, and whether it is truly voluntary after all.