Taiwanese startups can no longer involve in "me-too" or "me-better" businesses, but must plan ahead and develop "me-only" technologies. The reasons are because the scales of Taiwanese venture capital (VC) and local market are limited, and does not have an advantage in demographic dividend. Mr. Michael Kao, President of Taiwan ITRI New Venture Association (TINVA) said that environmental, social, and governance (ESG), pharmaceuticals, smart manufacturing, and the semiconductor industries are some of the cutting-edge technologies that Taiwan should plan ahead and invest in. Given Taiwan's complete information and communications technology (ICT) industry chain, there is a good chance that Taiwan can gear to become a key hub for innovations and startups for the Asia Pacific region.

Fourth-quarter 2022 global server shipments declined 7.1% from the prior quarter and 4.3% from the prior year as China-based datacenter operators, as well as server brands, exhibited sluggish shipment momentum while cloud service providers including Meta and Google had weakening demand, according to figures from the latest server report.

Qualcomm has reported revenue declined 12% on year to US$9.5 billion in its fiscal first quarter, with its QCT (Qualcomm CDMA Technologies) business generating nearly US$7.9 billion.

Universal Robots (UR) and Techman Robot, the world's top two collaborative robot (cobot) suppliers, are optimistic about the growth potential of the overall and Taiwan markets.

Optimistic about the global agri-food tech market of over US$500 billion per year, the estimated value of the investment portfolio of Foodland Ventures in the relevant industries has also surpassed US$250 million. Mr. Victor Chen, Founder & CEO of Foodland Ventures, stated that given the density of resources, Taiwan is equipped with a complete "farm-to-table" agri-food supply chain. From its local funding, talent pool, and technological strengths, Taiwan possesses the competitiveness required to expand into the global market.

On January 31, Belgium-based semiconductor research hub Imec announced that it demonstrated co-integration of its high-quality silicon nitride waveguide technology with its silicon photonics platform—without performance degradation of the high-bandwidth active devices. An important upgrade for imec's silicon photonics platform, the result enables the synthesis of high-quality wavelength-selective devices and other optical passive functions that benefit from accurate optical phase control, meeting market demands for optical transceivers for datacom, LiDAR, and other applications.

Chip orders for servers from top cloud service providers have dropped dramatically, casting a shadow over server demand prospects for 2023, according to industry sources.

Taiwan-based server ODMs have expressed caution about their sales prospects for the first quarter of 2023, citing significant adjustments in customer orders, according to industry sources.

AMD has reported revenue surged 44% on year to a record high of US$23.6 billion in 2022, buoyed by strong sales of AMD's embedded and data center chips. The processor vendor expects its data center and embedded segments to continue growing this year.

Server DRAM prices are likely to drop 20-25% in the first quarter of 2023, as cloud service providers continue to slow down on server procurement, according to TrendForce.

Google has already set up an engineering team in Taiwan for the vendor's in-house developed ICs, according to industry sources.

ODMs should see the market improve in the second half of 2023, according to Quanta Computer vice chairman CC Leung, adding that companies should still stay cautious over the year.

According to Canalys' latest cybersecurity forecasts, global cybersecurity spending (including enterprise products and services) will increase by 13.2% in 2023 and remain a key growth sector for channel partners.

Zoom Video Communications has kicked off operations at its new cloud computing data center in Taiwan. The launch of the center is to fulfill its commitment to ensuring the quality and reliability of its video conferencing services.

Despite the global technology headwind, Taiwan's storage sector has been relatively well-off due to targeting high-tech clients like semiconductors. GM of NetApp Taiwan Sean Lin pointed out that as the semiconductor process advances, the amount of data created will multiply. Thus, the demand for storage will just continue to grow.

This year will see a substantial rise in the adoption of DDR5 memory in data centers and other server applications.

Taiwan-based machine tool makers recorded a total export value of US$3.023 billion in 2022, increasing 8.6% on year, according to Taiwan Machine Tool & Accessory Builders' Association (TMBA).

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel, and Nvidia are bracing for the ongoing sluggish demand of end-market PCs and other consumer devices in the first half of 2023, but are pinning their hopes on demand recovering in the second half, according to industry sources.

IBM has appointed Nelson Lee as its new general manager of the Taiwan office after the retirement of his predecessor Lisa Kao, according to the company's announcement.

Taiwan-based industrial PC (IPC) maker Ibase Technology hosted an opening ceremony for its new factory in Taoyuan, Taiwan on January 12 and the company's capacity is expected to rise 250% with the activation of the new facility, according to the company.

According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker, Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 24.7% on year in the third quarter of 2022 to US$23.9 billion.

Qualcomm Technologies Inc. announced on January 13 the launch of its 5th Qualcomm Innovate in Taiwan Challenge (QITC) to support Taiwan startups in developing innovative solutions using Qualcomm's mobile platforms in the areas of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Edge AI, Machine Learning, Smart Cities, Robotics and Multimedia.

Micron Technology announced that its DDR5 server memory portfolio for the data center is now fully validated on the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. Micron DDR5 memory delivers up to twice the memory bandwidth over previous generations, which is essential to fueling the rapid growth of cores in today's data center processors, according to the memory chip vendor.

Compal Electronics has disclosed plans to set up an assembly plant for automotive electronics products for new energy vehicles in Mexico with mass production scheduled to begin in the third quarter at the earliest.

According to a new IDC forecast, worldwide revenues for enterprise applications will grow from US$279.6 billion in 2022 to US$385.2 billion in 2026 with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8%. Nearly all this growth will come from investments in public cloud software, which is expected to represent nearly two-thirds of all enterprise applications revenues in 2026.