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Tuesday 19 May 2026
Commentary: Sanctions reshaped China's foundry sector — just not in the way markets expected
China's foundry sector is charting a different course as the global semiconductor market remains focused on AI GPUs, the 2nm process node, and advanced packaging. Led by Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Hua Hong Semiconductor, domestic Chinese foundries have not stalled under US sanctions; instead, they are accelerating efforts to build a China-specific foundry ecosystem amid the AI boom, recovering demand for mature nodes, and a push for supply-chain self-reliance
LATEST STORIES
Wednesday 20 May 2026
Commentary: China hardens AI self-reliance push after Trump-Xi talks
After the Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, China's senior leadership has stepped up inspections of artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing and computing infrastructure, offering a clear signal of where Beijing wants its technology policy to move over the next three years
Wednesday 20 May 2026
Interview: Governments are losing the AI cybersecurity race, and Palo Alto Networks thinks it has the answer
Governments are losing the race against AI. That is the blunt assessment of Nicole Quinn, vice president of policy and government affairs for Asia-Pacific at Palo Alto Networks. Policy moves too slowly, she argues, and overly rigid rules only make things worse
Wednesday 20 May 2026
Commentary: Musk, Huang, and H200—Nvidia's last chip in China
US President Donald Trump's trip to China with 17 business leaders thrust Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang back into the spotlight — as Beijing's position on Nvidia's H200 chips and China's broader AI supply chain continue to reshape the market narrative
Saturday 16 May 2026
Column: Orbit are now battlefields—how the world's powers are militarizing space
In April 2024, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) executed one of the most significant overhauls of its military architecture in decades. The former Strategic Support Force was disbanded and reorganized into three distinct branches: the Military Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, and the Information Support Force. Together with the existing Joint Logistics Support Force, these constitute a new four-branch support structure — one designed not merely to support terrestrial warfare, but to dominate the space domain itself
Friday 15 May 2026
Commentary: The Thucydides trap and TSMC's COUPE
On May 14, Xi Jinping opened his summit with Donald Trump in Beijing by invoking the Thucydides Trap — the idea that a rising power and an established hegemon are structurally destined for conflict. Then he turned to Taiwan. If not handled properly, he warned, the two countries face clashes and even conflicts
Friday 15 May 2026
Analysis: Europe embraces Chinese EVs while North America loses momentum
Despite persistent uncertainty in the global economy, volatility in energy markets is accelerating a structural shift in the auto industry. New data released May 13 by the consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence shows that surging gasoline prices — driven in large part by turmoil in the Middle East — pushed global electric-vehicle demand higher for a second consecutive month in April 2026, as consumers increasingly turn away from conventional combustion-engine cars
Friday 15 May 2026
Column: The new space arms race is being fought with AI, lasers, and autonomous satellites
The emerging space arms race toward 2030 is no longer defined simply by the number of satellites nations can launch into orbit. Increasingly, it is being shaped by breakthroughs in advanced communications, artificial intelligence (AI), orbital logistics, and rapid launch systems, technologies that could redefine military power in space over the next decade
Friday 15 May 2026
Interview: The 6G clock is ticking — and Ericsson wants Taiwan in its corner
The global mobile standards race has moved into the 6G prelude, with Ericsson saying the first fully implementable 6G specification is expected as early as March 2029. In an exclusive interview with DIGITIMES, Marie Hogan, who leads the 6G portfolio strategy for Ericsson's global networks business, said 3GPP is pushing ahead with 6G standardization as the industry weighs the technology's AI-native design, uplink demands, and migration path from 5G
Thursday 14 May 2026
Analysis: Samsung labor standoff underscores diverging Taiwan-Korea semiconductor workforce models
The ongoing Samsung Electronics labor dispute highlights sharply different labor models in South Korea and Taiwan, where firms such as TSMC operate with minimal union presence and rely instead on compensation-driven workforce stability. Industry observers say the Samsung conflict reflects broader tensions over profit sharing during the AI-driven semiconductor upcycle, while Taiwan's tech sector continues to favor high mobility and individual incentives over collective bargaining
Thursday 14 May 2026
Analysis: How OpenAI is playing the Cerebras card to reshape its AI supply chain
OpenAI's deep partnership with chipmaker Cerebras has taken a public turn as Cerebras prepares to list in the US, a development that underscores OpenAI's effort to restructure its compute supply chain without abandoning existing suppliers. The listing arrives amid OpenAI's ongoing legal dispute with Elon Musk
Thursday 14 May 2026
Column: Why robots aren't ready for the real world — yet
Over the past 15 years, several major technological paradigms have crossed the commercial threshold from "zero to one" and into mass adoption
Wednesday 13 May 2026
Commentary: AI server ODMs face margin squeeze as memory costs soar
As AI server orders surge, system assembly makers are finding that more business does not always mean better profits. High-priced GPUs and soaring memory costs are pushing up revenue without lifting manufacturing fees at the same pace, leaving original design manufacturers (ODMs) facing lower gross margins as assembly orders grow
Wednesday 13 May 2026
Commentary: Trump's China dealbook favors Boeing, soybeans, and Wall Street over AI chips
Against a backdrop of persistently high tensions between the US and China, the upcoming Trump-Xi summit is being closely watched not only for its implications for trade, technology controls, and geopolitics, but also as a key signal of how both sides are reassessing the remaining areas where cooperation may still be possible
Wednesday 13 May 2026
Column: Global space race shifts from military to sovereign
The global space and defense industry is undergoing a strategic transformation — from treating space as a force multiplier to claiming it as a domain of sovereign control
Tuesday 12 May 2026
Commentary: Trump-Xi summit may offer China a pause, not a truce
Ahead of the expected Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, the US and China are first holding preparatory talks in South Korea, placing trade, technology, and semiconductor export controls at the center of the negotiation track