SEMICON China 2026 spotlighted the scale of the AI investment boom, with Handel Jones, CEO of International Business Strategies (IBS), estimating that global AI and data center capital expenditure has surged from about US$110 billion in 2020 to roughly US$600 billion in 2026.
The surge in artificial intelligence demand is pushing the semiconductor industry toward a supply crunch, as Elon Musk outlined a plan to build what he described as the largest chip manufacturing effort in history.
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) more than doubled revenue to about US$8 billion in 2025, as surging demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers drove up memory chip prices, according to Bloomberg. The growth provides a boost to the strategically important Chinese chipmaker ahead of a planned domestic IPO.
Google has introduced TurboQuant, a compression algorithm that reduces large language model (LLM) memory usage by at least 6x while boosting performance, targeting one of AI's most persistent bottlenecks: memory. The breakthrough lowers inference costs and expands deployment across cloud and edge environments.
Taiwan's Legislative Yuan Internal Administration Committee held its second public hearing on proposed amendments to the National Security Act on March 26. Attendance from civil society groups and academic experts was limited, and only a small number of lawmakers spoke.
SK Hynix plans to build more than KRW100 trillion (approx. US$66 billion) in net cash to support long-term investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, as surging demand reshapes the memory industry and drives a new round of capital spending.
According to Vic Wu, General Manager of the Specialist Team Unit (STU) of Microsoft Taiwan, the era of exploratory AI is over. As the industry enters the second quarter of 2026, it is no longer asking if AI works, but how to manage the increasing volume of digital labor now entering the global workforce.
US-based AI startup Anthropic is navigating a pivotal moment that blends legal confrontation with financial ambition, as the firm both fends off a US government ban and explores a potential initial public offering (IPO), according to Bloomberg.
At the intersection of global semiconductor power and cultural influence, K-pop band 2AM's Lim Seul-Ong delivered a keynote at the AI Expo, reframing the AI race as a battle for human time. While the focus is typically on enterprise productivity, Lim introduced "the 8-hour war" concept, arguing that the ultimate leader in the AI ecosystem will be whoever captures the final third of a person's day. This refers to the eight hours dedicated to leisure, fandom, and emotional connection. While tech giants focus on faster chips and more massive models, Lim argued that these are engines idling without a destination. To reach the mass market, AI must transition from a solely tech to an experience industry, using entertainment as the medium to turn raw computing power into something humans can actually feel.
