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Wednesday 27 May 2026

Unitree sprints toward IPO as profits crumble under rising costs

Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics is moving quickly toward an initial public offering, but its latest prospectus points to the commercial challenges still facing the sector.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

From boom-bust to structural growth? Memory's US$1 trillion moment puts AI thesis to the test

First Micron, then SK Hynix, join the trillion-dollar club, capping an extraordinary repricing of an industry once dismissed as a commodity play. The milestone is more than a valuation story: it crystallizes a structural debate about whether AI has permanently transformed memory's earnings profile, a bubble concern as Chinese rivals ramp capacity, and a sharpening geopolitical contest over who controls the bandwidth backbone of artificial intelligence.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Qualcomm and ByteDance's rumored AI ASIC deal signals potential shift in China's data center chip supply

The agreement between Qualcomm and ByteDance positions the former for large-scale AI ASIC demand from the latter, as reported by Bloomberg, but market viability remains uncertain amid intense AI chip competition, evolving China procurement preferences, and regulatory pressures affecting cross-border semiconductor adoption.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

IREN signs US$1.6bn Dell deal for Blackwell AI systems to expand Texas data center capacity

IREN Limited has signed a purchase agreement with Dell Technologies for air-cooled Blackwell-based systems intended to support its previously announced five-year US$3.4bn managed services AI cloud contract. The deal forms part of its broader effort to expand AI compute capacity and shorten deployment timelines for large-scale GPU infrastructure.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Daxin Materials advances into Low Dk and Low Df market for booming AI server and LEO satellite applications

Taiwan-based Daxin Materials posted stronger revenue and profitability in 2025 as rapid growth in semiconductor materials offset a still-cautious display market recovery, with AI- and HPC-driven demand emerging as the company's primary growth engine.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Jensen Huang: Taiwan is center of AI revolution, with US$150 billion in capex powering local ecosystem

Nvidia held an "employee town hall" on the morning of May 27 at the T17 and T18 sites in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (BSTP), where CEO Jensen Huang met staff, gave away Dom Pérignon, and framed Taiwan as central to the company's AI expansion. Taipei Mayor Wayne Chiang attended only as a "guest."

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Nvidia CEO says Taiwan needs more electricity, ministry confirms 5.2 GW of gas capacity to be added

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who is visiting Taiwan for two weeks, stated that the island's manufacturing sector is developing rapidly and needs more electricity.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

OpenAI targets smaller advertisers in push to make ChatGPT ads pay off

OpenAI is widening its ChatGPT advertising business beyond large brands, adding tools aimed at smaller marketers as it seeks to turn one of the world's most widely used AI products into a more measurable ad platform.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

China-based SmartSens, Unisoc team up on Micro LED optical interconnects for AI clusters

SmartSens and Unisoc have formed a strategic partnership to develop Micro LED high-speed optical interconnects, aiming to deliver domestic, low-power, high-bandwidth solutions for short-reach AI cluster links. The collaboration could accelerate the commercialization of Micro LED co-packaged optics (CPO) technology and strengthen China's role in global AI infrastructure supply chains, according to a press release.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Taiwan robotics supply chain posts strong 1Q26 gains on AI demand upcycle

Accelerating the adoption of smart manufacturing, AI-driven automation, and humanoid robot applications in 2026 is driving robust growth across Taiwan's robotics supply chain. Systems integrators and key transmission-component suppliers posted strong first-quarter 2026 results, with many reporting double-digit increases in both revenue and profit amid expanding demand from traditional industrial automation and emerging AI robotics applications.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Microsoft flattens leadership to speed AI decision-making across businesses

Microsoft overhauled its long-standing senior leadership structure as Chief Executive reorganized the company to accelerate AI development and cut decision-making time, executives said. The firm replaced its Senior Leadership Team with a new corporate governance group that includes the CEO, the president, the chief financial officer, the chief human resources officer and the business chief, and said the group will meet at least once a week.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Former Tencent AI lead says Chinese firms are trailing US on core LLM innovation

A former Tencent large-model technical chief warned that Chinese artificial intelligence companies lack independent paradigm-level breakthroughs and are trailing US rivals, according to an interview with the South China Morning Post. He said the gap in large language model technology was about three months and could widen to six months by year-end as OpenAI prepares to launch GPT 5.6, and that US chip export controls had reduced China's available computing power for training advanced models.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

AI infrastructure spending lifts Taiwan electronics sector outlook

Cloud providers' large-scale investments in AI infrastructure have strengthened demand for Taiwan's electronics supply chain, boosting optimism among local manufacturers, according to a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) survey. The survey noted that nearly 40% of Taiwan's electronics and machinery makers were optimistic about business conditions over the next six months as cloud service providers planned massive capital outlays in 2026 to meet surging AI compute needs.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Column: Quantum-classical computing's promise meets its hardware limits

AI's rapid evolution — from AI servers to agentic AI and emerging physical AI — centers on high-performance computing, and integrating general fault-tolerant quantum computers into that stack could change what HPC can do. The transition, however, confronts deep technical mismatches between classical AI servers and quantum processors.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Covestro highlights material solutions for AI data centers and embodied intelligence at COMPUTEX 2026

Covestro showcased a portfolio of engineering plastics and thermoplastic polyurethane materials at COMPUTEX 2026 aimed at supporting AI computing, embodied intelligence, and networking devices, executives said. The supplier presented applications spanning AI data centers, high-performance computing servers, semiconductor manufacturing, robotics, and consumer electronics to address rising performance and supply-chain demands.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Xiaomi outlines AI-first roadmap as MiMo tokens and Miclaw shape product strategy

Xiaomi placed AI at the center of its first quarter 2026 strategy, saying it will "take the agent as the core" of a new OS approach and pushing its MiMo model and token plans to drive product adoption and monetization across phones, cars, IoT, and robotics.

Wednesday 27 May 2026

Aixtron wins orders from Lumentum for G10-AsP systems to expand InP production

Aixtron has received multiple orders from Lumentum for its G10-AsP MOCVD systems, a move that could boost global production of indium phosphide (InP) lasers and detectors for 800G and beyond. The deal underscores growing demand for high-speed optical interconnects in AI data centers and signals capacity expansion in photonics manufacturing worldwide.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Darfon Electronics invests in AI cooling systems maker GrAndvance

As demand for high-performance computing continues to rise, thermal management has emerged as one of the most critical constraints on server performance. Liquid cooling systems, once a niche solution, are rapidly moving into the mainstream. At the center of that shift is the coolant distribution unit ( CDU), which has become a strategic component as major suppliers race to secure positions in the liquid cooling supply chain.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Let there be limits—Pope Leo invokes scripture on AI's moral peril, Anthropic in tow

Pope Leo XIV released a major document on May 25, warning about the dangers of AI, from autonomous weapons to what he claims is its relation to "new forms of slavery" arising from the industry. An unexpected attendee of the pope's Vatican event announcing the document's release was Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, a presence that signals the AI developer's relationship with the Catholic Church as it seeks to bolster its image as an AI company concerned with ethics.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Wonderful Hi-Tech sees rising demand from low-orbit satellites and AI data centers

At its annual shareholders' meeting on May 25, Ringo Chang, chairman of Wonderful Hi-Tech, said the cable and connectivity supplier expects revenue growth to resume in 2026, with profit growth outpacing sales expansion.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Huawei Tau Law series 1: How China's chip industry is pivoting beyond Moore's Law

When Huawei unveiled its "Tau (τ) Scaling Law" at ISCAS 2026 in Shanghai, the announcement signalled more than another chip architecture update. It marked China's most ambitious attempt yet to redefine how semiconductor performance is measured in the post-Moore era.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Kinpo Electronics pushes beyond manufacturing with AI servers, satellite systems, and quantum computing

At its annual shareholders' meeting on Sunday, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Kinpo Electronics provided new details on its transition toward higher-value ODM businesses, alongside updates on AI server racks, satellite communications systems, and emerging investments in quantum computing.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

Wiwynn expands US capacity as AI server boom strains power and supply chains

Taiwan-based AI server maker Wiwynn is accelerating its global expansion as surging demand for AI infrastructure creates mounting pressure on power supply, production capacity, and critical component availability.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

AMD and Nvidia deepen investments in Taiwan semiconductor ecosystem

When AMD CEO Lisa Su arrived in Taiwan on May 20, she announced plans to invest more than US$10 billion with local supply-chain partners and the island's broader semiconductor ecosystem. The goal, she said, was to help secure a long-term supply of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Tuesday 26 May 2026

China pushes homegrown AI stack with local chips, LLMs

Following the conclusion of the Trump-Xi meeting and amid continued delays in China approving imports of Nvidia H20 GPUs, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on May 22 sent a strong policy signal on artificial intelligence (AI) self-sufficiency, explicitly calling for greater efforts to pair domestic large language models with domestically developed computing chips.

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