Apple CEO Tim Cook has officially kicked off his 2026 Asia tour with a visit to China, attending the company's 50th anniversary celebration at the Chengdu Taikoo Li Apple Store. The event featured concerts and consumer interactions aimed at reinforcing brand loyalty as part of the ongoing efforts to solidify Apple's supply chain in the region.

The next front in the global AI race may not be a data center. It could be a robot. Taiwan has quietly staked its claim — and it's building the industrial machinery to back it up.

Despite lacking the industrial legacy of Japan and Germany, China has rapidly built its AI robotics sector into a formidable force, posing as a subtle challenge to US technological dominance. Tien-Chong Cheng, chairman of Aurotek, attributes this swift growth to two key drivers: maintaining high market competition and freedom, and allowing the industry itself to shape development strategies.

Recent shifts in the memory market are putting significant pressure on the e-reader supply chain, from upstream manufacturers to midstream module makers and downstream brand companies.

Nvidia's GTC 2026 is well underway, with the event reaching a record scale as among the major annual events in the AI landscape. Despite a packed schedule, CEO Jensen Huang attended the conference's "Taiwan Night" on March 18 (local time) to engage with Taiwanese partners and express his appreciation for their work.

As fighting in the Middle East continues, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent shockwaves through global energy and petrochemical markets. The disruption is already rippling across supply chains, prompting manufacturers such as Shin-Etsu Chemical to scale back production of ethylene-based products and raise domestic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) prices in Japan by roughly 20%.

Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT) showcased connectivity, power, and cooling solutions at multiple 2026 industry events as it seeks a larger role in the AI computing supply chain. The company presented products and collaborations at DesignCon 2026, OFC 2026, and GTC 2026.

Techman Robot demonstrated its humanoid robot TM Xplore I, and advanced motion training technology at Nvidia GTC 2026. The company announced a partnership with motion capture specialist J-Mex to integrate J-Mex's MOXI wearable motion capture system, enabling highly precise robot motion training.

Rumors circulating in the semiconductor market suggest that Amazon may scale back shipments of its upcoming Trainium 3 artificial-intelligence chip after internal tests reportedly showed performance falling short of expectations. Yet suppliers involved in the chip's components say they have received no such notice and continue to prepare for a rapid ramp-up in production beginning in the second quarter of 2026.

The global surge in AI demand and tightening memory supply have pushed prices higher, propelling the semiconductor industry into a new growth cycle. Global chief marketing officer and president of Taiwan at SEMI, Terry Tsao, said the sector's output is expected to break the US$1 trillion mark ahead of schedule in 2026, with projections reaching US$2 trillion by 2035, outpacing previous forecasts. However, he also highlighted talent recruitment as the biggest bottleneck facing the semiconductor industry over the next three years.

Rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are fueling debate in Taiwan over energy security, as industry leaders warn that disruptions to global supply routes could expose vulnerabilities in the island's power system and add pressure to its semiconductor-dependent economy.

Nexcom Group has launched its first humanoid robot development kit based on the Nvidia IGX Thor platform, unveiling the MARS400 T20 at the Nvidia GTC 2026. The kit integrates real-time motion control, functional safety modules, high-speed communication, and thermal management technologies. It is aimed at collaborative robot system integrators to shorten development and production cycles.

At Nvidia's GTC 2026 conference, major chipmakers — including Texas Instruments (TI), Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors, Analog Devices (ADI), and Synopsys — announced new collaborations centered on robotics built around Nvidia's platform. Robotics is now the defining focus for IDM firms and the broader industrial control chip ecosystem.

Amid tightening memory supply and surging demand for AI-ready infrastructure, hardware vendors are racing to redesign systems for the next phase of enterprise AI adoption — a shift thrown into sharp relief at Nvidia's GTC 2026.

On March 17, IBM completed its acquisition of Confluent, Inc., the data streaming platform used by more than 6,500 enterprises — including 40% of the Fortune 500 — to power real-time operations. Under the agreement, IBM acquired all issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent for US$31 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of approximately US$11 billion.

At GTC 2026, Nvidia outlined a dual-track approach combining copper cables and silicon photonics (SiPh) to meet surging AI-driven demand for data center interconnects. CEO Jensen Huang emphasized that as AI compute needs escalate, future data centers will require expanded capacity across copper cabling, optical communication, and co-packaged optics (CPO) — establishing optical-copper parallelism as the industry's defining development path.

On March 18, Foxconn (Hon Hai) announced a strategic partnership with SAP to accelerate the adoption of next-generation enterprise artificial intelligence across the Asia-Pacific region. The collaboration is built on the AI Factory initiative, which Foxconn says seeks to reshape future manufacturing processes and supply chain management while opening pathways for global deployment.

Syscom Computer Engineering showcased an "AI mobilization" theme at the 2026 Smart City Expo, integrating physical service robots with intelligent digital workers and presenting the technology as a core operational force for enterprises. The company described this integration as marking the arrival of "enterprise digital workers" — entities designed to function alongside human staff and reshape business models.

The 2026 Smart City Summit & Expo features an AI robot application zone, jointly planned by the Taiwan Smart City Solutions Alliance, the Tainan City Government, and the Special Interest Group. The zone will gather more than 15 domestic robot manufacturers to showcase components, systems, and applications.

Apple's recently launched affordable MacBook Neo has been found to use MediaTek's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips instead of Broadcom or Apple's own N1 chip, according to teardown reports. Industry insiders assess that Apple likely made this decision to reduce costs while buying time to improve its in-house N-series chip specifications.

At an industry forum in Shanghai this month, a young Chinese semiconductor startup laid out a sweeping vision: designing chips not only for smartphones and self-driving cars, but also for robots, personal AI supercomputers — and eventually, computing centers in orbit.

Aggressive AI investments by major US cloud service providers (CSPs) are driving a surge in demand for Taiwan's semiconductor and ICT hardware, pushing exports, prices, and private investments toward record levels despite supply constraints.

Driven by US President Donald Trump's push for American reindustrialization and efforts to shift industries away from China through high tariffs, Taiwan's economy is set to outpace China's growth for the second consecutive year in 2026.

Wistron Group posted record revenue and earnings per share in 2025, driven by strong demand for AI servers. Still, its gross margin fell as higher unit prices and material costs tied to increased shipments of AI server racks weighed on profitability.