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Friday 7 August 2026
Wistron sees AI server growth accelerate in August; new HPE, Lenovo and Oracle orders add 4Q26 lift

Wistron expects stronger AI server growth in August 2026 after reporting July revenue of NT$308.22 billion (approx. US$9.53 billion), down 4.2% month-over-month but up 60.8% year-over-year. Revenue for the first seven months reached NT$2.05 trillion, up 88.2% from a year earlier. The company expects AI server shipments to grow sequentially throughout the second half of 2026.

Friday 7 August 2026
Malaysia weighs loosening rare earth export limits as global supply chase intensifies
Malaysia is reviewing limits on unprocessed rare earth exports as investors seek access and governments worldwide race to secure strategic minerals. Any policy shift could affect supply chains far beyond Southeast Asia, shaping how global manufacturers, defense industries, and clean-energy firms source critical materials in an increasingly geopoliticized market.
Friday 7 August 2026
Controlled scarcity: MP Materials builds America's rare earth answer while China keeps the heavies at home
MP Materials' second quarter is best read as a status report on an industrial contest. On the one hand, China has tightened its grip on the parts of the rare earth chain that matter most for defense and high-performance motors. On the other hand, the US is paying to stand up a parallel supply chain inside a single company.
Friday 7 August 2026
Interview: Nvidia exec on progress of CPO production and pluggable optics
Nvidia Senior Vice President of Networking Gilad Shainer said the company is building the key network architecture and optical interconnect technologies needed for AI factory deployments at scale, in a DIGITIMES interview ahead of the OCP APAC Summit on August 11-12, 2026. He said the biggest shift in AI factories is that the computing unit is no longer a single server but the entire data center, while Nvidia's announcement that co-packaged optics (CPO) switch has entered mass production signals a new round of upgrades for the optical communications industry and the AI networking market.
Friday 7 August 2026
Panel makers turn old fabs into AI-advanced packaging hubs

AI-driven demand for advanced packaging is giving old-generation panel fabs and equipment new value. As Taiwan's panel makers accelerate the phaseout of LCD capacity at the 5.5 generation and below, they are splitting into two tracks: selling factories to foundries and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) providers, or keeping lines in-house to develop fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP), through-glass via (TGV), redistribution layer (RDL), and glass core technologies.

Friday 7 August 2026
Wistron rumored to win Oracle AI server order as new customers expand
Wistron has secured new AI server customers, including enterprise accounts Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Lenovo Group, as well as a reported cloud services provider (CSP) order from Oracle, underscoring Taiwan ODMs' growing role in AI server manufacturing as demand surges and production becomes more complex.
Friday 7 August 2026
Inventec forecasts weaker notebook shipments as server growth continues in the third quarter
Inventec said notebook shipments will soften in the third quarter after customers pulled in orders during the first half, lifting volumes above expectations, while server shipments are set to keep rising. The Taiwanese electronics maker reported that it shipped 1.6 million notebook units in July, down from 2.4 million in June, and expects third-quarter notebook shipments to fall by a single-digit percentage from the second quarter.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Primax Electronics posts higher 2Q revenue as margins come under pressure

Primax Electronics reported stronger second-quarter 2026 consolidated revenue on the back of robust shipments from new consumer audio programs and contributions from professional audio projects, while profit metrics weakened under pressure from a stronger yuan, rising component costs and product-mix changes. The Taiwan-based electronics maker said it was adopting a more cautious view of the third quarter as it expanded into AIoT, smart surveillance and robotics.

Thursday 6 August 2026
iBase Solution unit lands U.S. optical module cooling orders after July launch
Industrial computer maker iBase Solution said its new subsidiary, which began operations in July 2026, has already moved into production after completing qualification with US customers. The unit, Coolify Inc., secured orders from several US networking and cloud companies for optical module cooling adhesive lines and began formal shipments.
Thursday 6 August 2026
Taiyo Yuden's AI server exposure is starting to reshape its earnings outlook
Taiyo Yuden has lifted its full-year outlook after a stronger first quarter, as demand from AI servers and related IT infrastructure increasingly drives sales of higher-end capacitors. The Japanese passive component maker returned to profit in the quarter ended June 30 and said a weaker yen, higher volumes, and stronger demand for high-reliability products are improving the outlook for the year.
Thursday 6 August 2026
US locks down tungsten and battery scrap exports as great-power minerals race intensifies
Washington has moved to keep tungsten waste and recycled battery material inside its own borders, a step that underscores how deeply critical-minerals policy has become entangled with the broader US-China strategic rivalry.
Thursday 6 August 2026
India proposes extension for electronics manufacturing tax breaks and loosening data center rules in new bill
India's Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, gives foreign suppliers to the country's electronics contract manufacturers a decade of extra tax certainty and removes some of the approval hurdles that had constrained foreign cloud and data-center operators, according to the bill text introduced in the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of India) on July 31, 2026, by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Wednesday 5 August 2026
Infineon sees AI demand outpacing supply as customers lock in long-term capacity

Infineon said demand for its AI data center power semiconductors continues to exceed available supply, prompting leading customers to sign multi-year capacity reservation agreements that give the chipmaker greater visibility while securing future supply for hyperscale AI deployments.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Furukawa Electric to invest JPY100 billion to double rollable ribbon cable capacity in response to data center demand
Furukawa Electric said on August 4 that it will invest approximately JPY100 billion (approx.US$630 million) in total to expand production capacity for optical fibers and optical fiber cables, citing sustained growth in demand for high-quality optical fiber cables driven by hyperscale data center buildouts.
Wednesday 5 August 2026
Infineon raises 2026 outlook as AI demand drives record quarterly revenue

Infineon Technologies reported record quarterly revenue for its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, fueled by booming demand for power semiconductors used in AI data centers, and raised its full-year guidance on stronger-than-expected growth.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Taiwan fund launches US$800M guarantee plan for US investment

Taiwan's National Development Fund said it will commit US$800 million to a financing guarantee mechanism aimed at helping local companies invest in the US. The program is designed to lower funding barriers, share lending risk with banks, and support overseas expansion, according to a news release from the National Development Council.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Apple seeks injunction against OpenAI as trade secrets battle over AI hardware intensifies

Apple has asked a US federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction preventing OpenAI and two former Apple employees from accessing, using, or disclosing what the iPhone maker says are its confidential trade secrets, escalating a legal fight that could shape competition in the emerging AI hardware market.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
US reportedly expands AI infrastructure security push with planned restrictions on Chinese optical transceivers

The Trump administration is preparing new restrictions on Chinese-made optical transceivers used in AI data centers, broadening Washington's efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese technology in critical digital infrastructure.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Taiwan launches NT$10B fund to back biotech commercialization

Taiwan's National Development Fund Management Committee on the 4th approved a new NT$10 billion (US$308 million) investment program for the country's biomedical industry. The 10-year initiative aims to support firms with innovative technology, strong clinical application value and international market potential, as the government looks to link Taiwan's biotech sector more closely with global markets.

Wednesday 5 August 2026
Cloud AI chipmakers race to secure capacity with long-term deals
Cloud AI chip demand remains exceptionally hot, forcing chipmakers to put advanced-node capacity at the top of their agenda. IC design firms say technical strength and cost are no longer enough; the ability to secure stable, sufficient capacity has become a key factor in supplier selection.
Wednesday 5 August 2026
From chip to grid: OCP CEO George Tchaparian on redefining data center architecture for the AI era
Ahead of the OCP APAC Summit in Taipei, George Tchaparian says co-packaged optics (CPO) gives Taiwan an opportunity to turn its manufacturing and packaging expertise into global standards leadership. He also warns that proprietary management interfaces are delaying AI infrastructure deployment and leaving a meaningful share of large GPU fleets in a degraded state.
Tuesday 4 August 2026
Taiwan classifies semiconductors, AI as high-energy industries, launches decarbonization project

Taiwan's government has recently begun classifying the semiconductor and AI industries as high-energy consumption industries in recent documents. This marks a notable development, as the manufacturing sector in general moves toward improving energy efficiency and eliminating toxic materials and waste products in pursuit of more eco-friendly measures to lessen the impact of climate change.

Tuesday 4 August 2026
Intel China adds day 0 support for MiniMax H3 after DeepSeek

Intel China has completed day-0 adaptation for MiniMax H3, the latest multimodal generative model from Chinese AI startup MiniMax, following its earlier support for the DeepSeek model family. The move underscores Intel's push to capture local AI deployment opportunities in China's growing open-source model ecosystem.

Tuesday 4 August 2026
Key material shortages prompt suppliers to prioritize three customer groups
Taiwanese research institute Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) released Taiwan's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) for July 2026 on August 3. The seasonally adjusted PMI rose 0.8pp to 61.5%, marking the tenth consecutive month of growth and the fastest pace of expansion since September 2021. The six-month outlook index also edged up 0.3pp to 64.5%, remaining above the 60.0% expansion threshold for a seventh consecutive month.
Tuesday 4 August 2026
India rumored to move to extend electronics tax breaks to 2041, widening pitch against China

India is reportedly proposing to extend key tax exemptions for foreign electronics manufacturers until 2041, a move that hands Apple a lobbying win and deepens a widening set of incentives designed to pull global hardware production away from China.