As global momentum builds around "sovereign AI," smaller economies face structural constraints in achieving technological independence, particularly in compute infrastructure and semiconductor supply chains.
Over the past three years, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang has returned to the same two-axis chart at each annual GTC conference — but the story that chart tells has shifted dramatically, from a technical argument aimed at engineers to a financial argument aimed at CEO and boards of directors. That evolution is not accidental. It is a deliberate, multi-year strategy to elevate Nvidia's compute platform procurement from a line item in an IT budget to a question of corporate competitiveness.
Alibaba Group has been quietly building something big. Over recent years, it has pushed steadily into in-house chip development — moving from design and research all the way to large-scale commercialization, all in a bid to cut reliance on external suppliers.
The upcoming SelectUSA investment summit is approaching, and Taiwanese firms are expected to be a major presence as they seek to integrate more closely with the US market. As the Taiwanese government continues encouraging its companies to "go east" by investing in the US to drive business growth, many firms are eager to seize this opportunity to better understand the American market and how to manage local supply chains.
Enterprises have a 2035 deadline. That is when the US government expects companies to have completed their migration to post-quantum cryptography — a safeguard against the encryption-breaking capabilities that quantum computers will eventually possess. But long before that reckoning arrives, quantum technology is already opening doors in finance, pharmaceuticals, and materials science. Ching-Ray Chang, director of CYCU's Quantum Information Center and a Global Quantum 100 honoree, maps out the road ahead at AI Expo Taiwan.
In May 2025, US President Donald Trump led a major investment delegation to the Middle East targeting key allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The delegation included Silicon Valley leaders from OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, Cisco, SoftBank, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. This trip underscored the region's strategic focus on AI-driven economic growth through data centers.
Ghost Robotics, a US-based developer of quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), has expressed interest in collaborating with Taiwan's supply chain as it moves to enter the local market. Discussions between the two sides are already at an advanced stage, according to supply chain sources.
Brinno outlined time-lapse photography, visual AI, and defense imaging as its three core business pillars for 2026 at a spring banquet on March 20, saying the focus will accelerate R&D investment and growth through its global distributor network.
Widely known for its mobile IP business, Arm has recently accelerated its push into the physical AI segment in China, following its expansion into the data center market and a strategic reorganization.
Tescan's expansion of its Seoul site integrates a Demo Lab with office space to better serve semiconductor clients amid global AI-driven memory demand, promising faster failure analysis and reliability testing for advanced packaging customers worldwide and reducing testing wait times for partners pursuing heterogeneous integration and chiplet technologies.
The Shanghai AI Laboratory recently unveiled its DeepLink hybrid inference solution, emphasizing heterogeneous chip collaborative computing capabilities. This move marks a breakthrough in integrating China's AI computing infrastructure and is seen as a localized alternative amid limited access to advanced GPUs and interconnect technologies.
Taiwan's central bank sharply raised its 2026 GDP forecast to 7.28%, citing substantial capex from international cloud service providers and aggressive investment expansion by domestic manufacturers as the main engines sustaining the economy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs reported strong early-year export order growth that supports the outlook.
At its GTC 2026 conference, Nvidia showcased a slate of technologies and new products squarely aimed at the next wave of artificial intelligence inference. With the integration of Groq's LPU technology, Nvidia's portfolio appears markedly more competitive on the inference side — widely seen as a strategic effort to defend its market share and discourage customers from turning to application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs.
SK Hynix is reportedly evaluating the use of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 3-nanometer process for producing the logic die in its seventh-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4E).
Samsung Electronics is facing escalating labor tensions after its largest union secured approval for a strike, raising concerns over potential disruptions to semiconductor production at a critical juncture for the global AI supply chain, according to Korean media reports, including SEDaily and Chosun Ilbo.
Computex 2026, set to take place in June, has once again invited Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon as the opening keynote speaker. In recent years, Qualcomm has stepped up its efforts at Computex to promote its AI PC business, with Cristiano Amon becoming a regular presence in keynote sessions.
Apple CEO Tim Cook struck a conciliatory tone at the China Development Forum, praising Chinese developers and manufacturing capabilities while emphasizing shared goals in innovation and sustainability, just days after renewed state media criticism of Apple's App Store practices, according to Bloomberg.
Elon Musk has unveiled one of his most ambitious industrial visions yet: a "Terafab" that would allow Tesla and SpaceX to design and manufacture their own semiconductors for artificial intelligence, robotics, and even space-based data centers. While the project reflects Musk's sweeping vision of a vertically integrated, AI-driven future, analysts and industry realities suggest the plan may face formidable technical, financial, and structural obstacles.
Niche copper-clad laminate (CCL) manufacturer Ventec expects to achieve double-digit revenue growth in 2026, driven by ongoing product price increases and strategic expansion into specialized markets such as defense aerospace and semiconductor test interfaces. Currently, special materials account for 50% of its revenue, positioning the company for what it predicts will be a robust order fulfillment phase.
Apple will cut App Store commissions in China from March 15, lowering the standard rate from 30% to 25% and discounted tiers for small developers and selected programs from 15% to 12%. The move marks a rare adjustment to a core revenue model and signals a new phase in the global "Apple tax" debate.
Samsung Electronics' labor union has voted overwhelmingly to initiate dispute proceedings following a breakdown in wage negotiations, raising concerns over potential disruptions to the supply of HBM4 memory for Nvidia's next-generation AI accelerators.
At the Nvidia GTC 2026 conference, CEO Jensen Huang emphasized that power delivery and liquid cooling will become core elements requiring co-design. He said that future AI racks and AI factories must integrate power and thermal systems into a unified infrastructure framework.
Chunghwa Telecom-owned probe card manufacturer Chunghwa Precision Test (CHPT) broke ground on a new plant on March 20 at the Pingzhen Industrial Park in Taoyuan, signaling an aggressive expansion strategy aimed at capturing rising semiconductor testing demand driven by artificial intelligence.
TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei contrasted viral videos of acrobatic robots from China with the functional requirements of high-performance service robotics, noting that mechanical agility remains "just for show" without the advanced silicon "brains".
