Facing memory shortages and Sharp's plan to shut down its Guishan K2 plant by the end of 2026, GIS chairman Hsien-Ying Chou said the company faces greater operational challenges in the second half of 2026. However, its transformation strategy is accelerating. Among its new businesses, optical waveguide products used in AI glasses and other applications began small-volume shipments in the first quarter of 2026, while its optical communications business is targeting advanced optical source packaging and testing services. Both new application areas are expected to gradually ramp up in 2027, creating new growth momentum for revenue and gross margins.

As the Middle East conflict escalates and demand for AI applications grows, product quotations continue to rise in the second quarter of 2026. Chen-Cheng Pan, chairman of silicone materials distributor Topco Scientific Materials, says upstream material shortages have also become severe. As applications in AI, optical communications, and robotics continue to expand, the proportion of revenue contributed by electronic materials is expected to increase further.

The conversation about humanoid robotics I observed over two days in Sunnyvale had a different quality from what I remembered a year ago. The demos were real. The deployments were live. The debate had shifted from "will this work" to "who gets to scale first" — and the answer is not obvious.

Yageo chairman Pierre Chen, who has become Taiwan's richest man, reiterated at the company's recent shareholders meeting that the group will not sit out opportunities in the AI applications market. He said Yageo will continue its long-running merger-and-acquisition strategy to drive transformation, raise product technology levels, and expand its full-spectrum integrated solutions.

Silicon Motion Technology (SMI) has released a portfolio of AI-optimized storage controllers and products ahead of Ccmputex 2026, targeting edge inference, AI PCs, enterprise AI infrastructure and automotive AI systems. The company said it will demonstrate new Edge SSD controllers, embedded UFS and eMMC controllers, enterprise NVMe solutions and automotive-grade storage aimed at improving data movement, latency and sustained workload performance for AI deployments.

South Korea is treating AI transformation as a future test of manufacturing competitiveness. The challenge now is not only installing smart systems, but converting frontline workers' tacit knowledge into standardized data that machines can use. For global industries, the outcome could shape how factories raise quality, productivity, and resilience.

LinkerBot, a leading Chinese developer of robotic dexterous hands, has acquired Jingling Zhikang in a strategic move that could push AI-powered bionic hands from high-cost rehabilitation devices into a broader assistive technology market.

Nvidia, Microsoft and Arm posted identical messages on X on Friday, each displaying the words "A New Era of PC" alongside the geographic coordinates of Taipei — a coordinated tease that has sent the market speculating about what the three companies plan to announce at Computex 2026, which opens next week.

As Taiwan's equity markets continue to surge on enthusiasm surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), concerns about a potential AI-driven bubble have grown louder among investors and analysts.

At the Nvidia AI Factory MGX Ecosystem Showcase in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 29, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that to meet the strong demand and support the production ramp for the next-generation Vera Rubin architecture, the company will double its artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer capacity in Taiwan in 2026. He also thanked supply chain partners, saying he could not do it alone.

The building where Saeed Amidi runs his global venture empire was once one of the most important semiconductor facilities on the West Coast. Philips Electronics operated a fabrication plant here in Sunnyvale, California, employing 8,000 people at its peak. Then, like much of America's chip manufacturing base, it moved to Asia — to Taiwan, to Korea, to the supply chains that would come to define the global electronics industry for the next three decades.

Three days at Plug and Play's Silicon Valley May summit left me with a clear takeaway: the technology industry is undergoing a structural shift, not just another hype cycle. Here are the five trends that stood out from the conversations, keynotes, and startup pitches I observed on the ground.

Airoha Technology is sharpening its strategy around global networking and edge AI chips, aiming to expand its customer base and strengthen its competitive moat. The MediaTek subsidiary is targeting infrastructure, audio, and positioning markets with products already shipping, in production, or advancing through development milestones that could matter to users and operators worldwide.

Quanta said demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure would be very strong in 2026 as the company pushed deeper into servers and wearable devices, and that it was expanding production in the US, Mexico, and Thailand. The remarks were made at the company's shareholders' meeting on May 29, where leadership framed AI as a major growth opportunity while reiterating a cautious approach that prioritizes profitable execution.

Foxconn has said its quantum computing work is drawing international attention, but the main challenge remains turning research into a commercial business. The company's quantum efforts could take about three years to reach an inflection point, with broader business potential expected around 2030, which may matter for industries and researchers worldwide.

Foxconn said its latest results highlight how technology manufacturing groups are reshaping supply chains for global customers. The company reported record earnings in 2025, raised dividends to a new high, and set a more ambitious profit target, signaling stronger returns for shareholders and continued investment in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and semiconductors worldwide.

Chinese EV maker Xpeng reported a significantly wider net loss for the first quarter of 2026, as the traditional seasonal slowdown in China's auto market weighed heavily on vehicle sales and deliveries.

IBM and Red Hat are committing US$5 billion to Project Lightwell, a new enterprise security initiative designed to protect open source software supply chains as AI accelerates both software development and vulnerability discovery.

As AI moves from cloud environments into factories and physical systems, semiconductor design is being reshaped by new demands in speed, energy efficiency, and on-site learning. At a recent system-semiconductor seminar in South Korea, Seong-jun Jang, a research center director at the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI), outlined four key architectural directions for future AI chips aimed at supporting industrial "physical AI."

Former US Pacific Army commander Charles Flynn led a defense and aerospace industry delegation to Taiwan and attended the 2026 Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) on May 28. Relying heavily on US arms sales, Taiwan is stepping up its use of AI and unmanned systems to strengthen defense resilience in response to shifting Chinese military tactics.

Anthropic's post-money valuation has reached US$965 billion after its newest funding round, more than doubling its value since February 2026 and putting it past its rival ChatGPT as the two aim to reach IPO status this year.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu said the company is accelerating its move into electric vehicles, robotics, and smart cities, arguing that these businesses will drive its next phase of long-term growth.

Wiwynn Technology, a major server manufacturer for AI infrastructure, warned that shortages are emerging across a range of data-center components beyond memory, a shift that could slow global AI buildouts or push up costs over the coming years. Executives said demand for data-center hardware would remain strong for the next three to five years as large cloud and hyperscale customers continued to raise capital spending, and the company signaled the US would be a focal market for expansion.

Wistron told shareholders on May 29 that it expects artificial intelligence to be in the early stages of growth and could expand to more than 10 times its current scale, potentially accounting for over 10% of global GDP. The company disclosed at its shareholders' meeting that it had received authorization to issue up to 250 million new shares and to explore overseas depositary receipts to support anticipated increases in capital needs as revenue scales up.