Acer Cyber Security (ACSI), a leading cybersecurity firm under the Acer Group, is setting AI and cloud services as its core operational focus for 2026. General manager I-Nan Wu highlighted ongoing efforts to develop new products and services, projecting double-digit growth for the company's operations next year.

The US is moving to reinforce critical mineral and semiconductor supply chains with key allies as the West's push to expand rare earth magnet production runs into a worsening shortage of heavy rare earth elements. Officials from eight allied nations will gather at the White House on December 12, 2025, to negotiate new agreements on energy, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor production, AI infrastructure, and logistics, according to Bloomberg. The initiative seeks to limit dependence on China, which controls more than 90% of global rare earth and permanent magnet refining capacity.

Alibaba Cloud is ramping up its global strategy, pushing aggressively into the Middle East and Southeast Asia to expand its presence in fast-growing emerging markets.

Apple announced that John Giannandrea, its senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, will officially retire in spring 2026. He will serve as an advisor during the transition period.

Japanese industrial robot manufacturer Fanuc announced on December 1, 2025, that it will partner with Nvidia to develop AI-driven robots capable of performing tasks based on verbal commands. The collaboration aims to integrate Nvidia's AI technology and embedded computers into Fanuc's robots, enabling autonomous operation and advanced simulation in virtual factory environments.

Merck Group's Kaohsiung semiconductor technology flagship campus officially completed phase one on December 1, marking Merck's first large-scale semiconductor materials technology campus worldwide. It has invested a total of EUR500 million (approx. US$580.5 million) over the past five years to build the campus, which covers key materials technologies required for AI applications, including thin-film technology, specialty gases, and formulated materials.

Alibaba Group's open-source Qwen model, recognized as a key player in the AI market, now forms the foundation of Singapore's large language model (LLM) SEA-LION. The latest version, Qwen-SEA-LION-v4, is based on Qwen3-32B.

When Google DeepMind launched the Gemini project two and a half years ago, CTO and Chief AI Architect Koray Kavukcuoglu acknowledged that Google was "still far from the top level"—a frank admission that the company was playing catch-up in the generative AI race. Yet Google possessed formidable advantages: an AI infrastructure spanning TPUs, global data centers, product distribution capabilities, a mature safety system, and massive invocation gateways built on Search and Android. Once combined with a unified model, these capabilities would form a network effect difficult to replicate.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has remained one of the few sectors with sustained global momentum over the past two years, but the underlying architecture of AI computing is shifting. ChatGPT sparked a GPU-led surge driven by Nvidia, while Google's Gemini 3 has redirected attention to AI servers built on its proprietary TPU accelerators.

OpenAI's decision to take an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings has reignited debate over whether the arrangement constitutes another circular deal. While analysts warn the structure obscures true performance, OpenAI and Thrive insist it is a mutually reinforcing partnership rather than an artificial value loop.

Nvidia's US$2 billion investment in Synopsys marks a pivotal attempt to extend CUDA and GPU-accelerated computing from AI training into the core of industrial and semiconductor engineering, tightening its grip on the entire AI server ecosystem, as ASIC servers, particularly TPU-based, are challenging Nvidia.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is fueling a DRAM supercycle, prompting South Korean securities firms to continuously raise their forecasts for Samsung Electronics' operating profit in 2026. Some projections now approach KRW90-100 trillion (approx. US$61.3-68.1 billion).

Although Taiwan possesses core upstream technologies in the robotics supply chain, downstream applications are only just getting started. To fill the gap, companies have formed the Robotics Innovation Alliance (RIA), emphasizing that future efforts will begin from actual industry needs to connect the supply and demand sides and push applications toward successful commercialization.

US AI company PaleBlueDot AI is reportedly seeking a US$300 million loan to help Chinese social media platform RedNote (Xiaohongshu) use Nvidia's high-end AI chips through a data center located in Tokyo.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) applications has significantly boosted demand for specialized glass-fiber fabrics in recent years, creating a growing supply shortage in the market. To address this trend,Formosa Plastics subsidiary Nan Ya Plastics and Japan's leading manufacturer Nitto Boseki (Nittobo) have announced a strategic partnership focused on specialized glass-fiber fabrics.

Following the US ban on sales of Nvidia's high-end chips to China, expectations have grown that Baidu could rapidly emerge as a new force in China's AI chip sector and become the country's second major source of domestic compute capacity after Huawei.

Google's success training the Gemini frontier model entirely on in-house TPUs has boosted confidence among China's tech giants. It strengthens the view that reducing Nvidia dependence is both viable and commercially sound, accelerating investment in domestic tensor-processor designs and other non-GPU accelerators.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger delivered a bold forecast: quantum computing could reach mainstream adoption within just two years, potentially puncturing the current AI hype. He went further, asserting that GPUs, which currently dominate AI processing, may begin to be gradually replaced by 2030.

According to Bloomberg, Reuters, and Mint, Digital Connexion, a joint venture between Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management, and US-based Digital Realty Trust, announced that it will invest US$11 billion by 2030 to develop a 1GW artificial intelligence-native data center campus in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

According to Reuters and Bloomberg, India's Adani Group plans to invest as much as US$5 billion in Google's artificial intelligence (AI) data center project in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, the company said on Friday. The investment will be made through AdaniConneX, a joint venture between Adani Enterprises and private data center operator EdgeConneX.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has recently been on the move, drawing significant attention. Aside from visiting TSMC founder Morris Chang and Quanta chairman Barry Lam during his Thanksgiving trip to Taiwan, there are also rumors that Huang made the trip to address ODM shipment issues with the GB300. Supply chain companies clarified that GB300 shipments are proceeding without problems, though pushing output to meet Nvidia's required volume will need an extra push.