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Monday 3 August 2026
Column: AI agents are advancing rapidly, but the automation map remains smaller than expected

Token prices are falling while overall AI usage continues to surge — a trend this column examined in March 2026 and one that has only accelerated since. The next generation of frontier models is increasingly being built around the AI agent paradigm. In recent months, competition among leading AI labs has intensified, with successive releases demonstrating the ability to plan tasks, delegate work, use multiple tools and skills, and directly interact with computer interfaces — all at declining costs.

Monday 3 August 2026
India roundup: R&D hubs, domestic tooling, OSAT investments, and AI hubs are powering India’s chip push

India is expanding its semiconductor ambitions through new R&D centers, indigenous design tools, packaging facilities and AI infrastructure investments, aiming to strengthen domestic capabilities and reshape global technology supply chains.

Monday 3 August 2026
FICG launches Singapore-Malaysia dual-core strategy
FICG's advanced manufacturing subsidiary PRO3C signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with AME Elite Consortium Berhad, a Malaysia-listed integrated industrial space solutions provider. FICG also signed an MOU with JTC, Singapore's government agency for industrial master planning and infrastructure development.
Monday 3 August 2026
Beijing's AI 'golden circle' draws Moonshot, Z.ai, US$14B in funding
Beijing is emerging as one of China's most prominent artificial intelligence clusters as competition in large language models intensifies. Moonshot AI's recently released open-source Kimi K3 model has climbed global open-source rankings, while Z.ai, DeepSeek, and other companies continue to expand. With talent, capital, policy support and technical resources increasingly concentrated around China's political decision-making center, Beijing is rapidly taking shape as a major AI hub.
Monday 3 August 2026
Agentic AI exposes urgent legal accountability gaps, South Korean scholar warns

Agentic AI is reshaping how work is delegated among intelligent systems, yet legal frameworks have failed to keep pace with the growing autonomy of AI agents. Legal loopholes involving responsibility and authority must be addressed urgently, South Korean legal scholar Hyesun Yoon warned at an academic forum hosted by Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) on July 30.

Monday 3 August 2026
Taiwan steps up investment in AI startups, compute infrastructure

The AI boom has been lifting Taiwan's upstream, midstream and downstream supply chains, but the country's application development remains a key area that still needs work. The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) said Taiwan must accelerate the development of AI applications, services and software ecosystems, in addition to its existing strengths in semiconductors and hardware supply chains, if it wants to build a more favorable environment for AI industry growth.

Sunday 2 August 2026
MiniMax H3 pairs 2K video with native stereo audio in China's multimodal AI race
Chinese AI start-up MiniMax launched MiniMax H3 on July 31, expanding its position in multimodal generative AI as competition among China's model developers spreads beyond large language models into video, audio, and AI agents.
Sunday 2 August 2026
AWS chip business passes US$25 billion run rate; CEO Jassy says there is 'real chance' of selling Trainium outside AWS
Amazon's custom silicon business has reached an annual revenue run rate of more than US$25 billion and is growing at triple-digit percentages yearly, CEO Andy Jassy said on the company's second-quarter earnings call. For the first time, he indicated the company may sell its Trainium accelerators to data centers it does not operate.
Sunday 2 August 2026
Interview: Governance layer key to deploying AI agents in the finance sector
AI agents are being rolled out in companies, promising efficiency and automated workflows. But as they enter regulated industries such as financial institutions, questions remain over how to manage them in sectors where mistakes could lead to lasting damage and broken trust.
Sunday 2 August 2026
Lawmakers debate wealth-sharing policies as AI-related gains push Taiwan toward K-shaped economy
Taiwanese electronics companies listed on the stock exchange posted a combined 33.7% increase in pre-tax profits for 2025, outpacing the 12.86% growth for all listed companies, while their employees saw an average pay rise of 10%. However, a survey conducted by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has found signals of a pronounced K-shaped economy, as two-thirds of Taiwan's salaried workers earn below the average wage.
Sunday 2 August 2026
Pittsburgh, Switzerland experts challenge Taiwan to move beyond robotics hardware
As AI shifts toward agentic and physical applications, industry observers say competition will no longer hinge on hardware manufacturing alone, but on the ability to integrate hardware and software. At this year's AI WAVE SHOW, foreign experts urged Taiwan to move beyond its role as a hardware supplier and become a key player in the global AI ecosystem.
Sunday 2 August 2026
Ennoconn tender for Kontron closes as Germany reviews foreign investment approval
Ennoconn Technologies' public tender offer for its subsidiary Kontron AG closed after the offer period ended, but the final outcome still depends on a German foreign direct investment review. The company said 12,289,840 Kontron shares were tendered, representing about 19.5% of Kontron's issued shares.
Saturday 1 August 2026
MediaTek eyes high-single-digit revenue growth, 20% ASIC share by 2027
MediaTek held an investor conference on July 31, 2026, with CEO Rick Tsai reiterating that ASIC revenue will reach US$2 billion in 2026. He also said the total addressable market for cloud ASICs will reach US$80 billion in 2027, while lifting the company's target market share to 15-20%.
Saturday 1 August 2026
Silicon Motion posts record Q2 revenue and 2026 sales growth over 100%
NAND controller maker Silicon Motion Technology reported record second-quarter 2026 revenue of US$451 million, up 32% quarter-on-quarter and 127% from a year earlier, as profit and margins also hit new highs. The company said third-quarter revenue will rise another 15% to 20% sequentially, and full-year 2026 revenue is set to reach a new record, with growth of more than 100% year-on-year.
Friday 31 July 2026
Analysis: The AI buildout stopped being a demand story

For three years, the constraint on artificial intelligence was how much compute the hyperscalers wanted to buy. The June-quarter filings of seven companies say the constraint has moved. It is now about who sets the price — and on that question the past five quarters have already taught a lesson from which most readers drew the wrong conclusion.

Friday 31 July 2026
MJ Taiwan names Maverick Shih chair, prioritizes AI, cybersecurity and space technologies

The Monte Jade Science and Technology Association of Taiwan (MJ Taiwan) elected Maverick Shih, chairman of Acer Cyber Security (ACSI), as its 13th chairman during the association's first board meeting of its new term on July 30.

Friday 31 July 2026
Amazon's Zoox receives US approval for commercial deployment of robotaxis

US transportation authorities have allowed Amazon's Zoox to operate commercially on a limited basis, making it the first paid robotaxi service approved in the country. This follows efforts by Trump administration officials to relax certain rules in an effort to encourage development in autonomous driving technology.

Friday 31 July 2026
ByteDance merges Lark with Doubao after AI revenue hits US$4B run rate
ByteDance is reorganising Doubao, Lark and Volcengine around a more unified enterprise AI strategy, combining product development, cloud commercialisation and workplace software as its large-model business reaches an annualised revenue run rate of US$4 billion.
Friday 31 July 2026
Pegatron chair says AI outlook remains strong, calls for Taiwan application push
Pegatron chairman Tzu-hsien Tung said that although he is not an investment expert, from an industry perspective he remains optimistic about the long-term outlook for artificial intelligence (AI), despite recent volatility in the capital markets sparking debate over whether the AI boom has begun to fade. While short-term markets are inevitably subject to intense fluctuations driven by international events, what matters more is the strength of Taiwan's industrial base, with AI driving growth across upstream, midstream, and downstream supply chains and gradually expanding from a single "silicon shield" into a broader "mountain range" of strategic industries.
Friday 31 July 2026
US CSP leaders keep capex growth as AI monetization deepens
Concerns over whether AI is a bubble hinge on two key questions: can related investments be monetized, and will cloud service providers (CSPs) keep expanding capital spending? Based on Google, Microsoft, and Meta, the answer to both remains yes, underscoring the strength of AI fundamentals.
Friday 31 July 2026
Jensen Huang's open-source push signals a fight over who controls the AI market

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has used a rare public intervention to argue that the US should back open-source artificial intelligence, not just the largest closed systems. His message comes as Silicon Valley debates whether AI's next phase will reward broad adoption and customization, or concentrated control and pricing power.

Friday 31 July 2026
Anthropic discloses AI testing breach days after OpenAI incident, raising scrutiny of autonomous agents
Anthropic said three of its Claude models unintentionally accessed the systems of three organizations after a testing environment was misconfigured and connected to the public internet. The incidents were identified after the company reviewed 141,006 test sessions and found that the breaches had occurred since April 2026.
Friday 31 July 2026
Samsung chip engineers eye SK hynix as AI-driven bonus gap fuels talent war
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently appeared alongside SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong at a high-profile AI gathering in San Francisco, highlighting the deepening ties among the companies driving the global AI supply chain.
Friday 31 July 2026
Analysis: Behind Microsoft's AI strategy to sharpen platform edge

Microsoft is no longer framing artificial intelligence as a race to build the single best model. Instead, it is positioning itself as the platform where customers can choose among many models. This shift could broaden its enterprise reach while reducing dependence on any one AI leader.

Friday 31 July 2026
EU launches AI Gigafactories call to boost Europe's computing capacity
The EU has opened a tender to build up to seven AI Gigafactories, a move that could reshape access to advanced computing for companies, researchers, and governments worldwide. The plan aims to expand Europe's AI capacity, attract private capital, and set standards for the development and use of frontier AI systems.