For three years the constraint on artificial intelligence was how much compute the hyperscalers wanted to buy. The June-quarter filings of seven companies say the constraint has moved. It is now about who sets the price — and on that question the past five quarters have already taught a lesson from which most readers drew the wrong conclusion.

Automotive chip sales are improving across Europe and the US, but major suppliers say global carmakers and their suppliers are still buying largely for immediate needs. A fuller inventory rebuild — one that could affect prices and supply globally — has yet to begin, leaving the recovery more cautious than expected.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) is broadening its collaboration with South Korean materials supplier SoulBrain beyond glass substrate etchants to include copper plating chemicals and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurries, as the companies race to secure key materials for next-generation AI chip packaging.

Intel has granted stealth chip startup RosaicLabs access to parts of its Atom processor technology, potentially including register-transfer level code that would allow the company to develop customised x86-based chips.

AI demand is tightening semiconductor capacity beyond TSMC's advanced nodes, with mature-process foundries and backend packaging providers raising prices as supply constraints spread across the industry.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella laid out how the company is scaling its AI infrastructure and platform to keep pace with demand. He outlined these plans during an earnings call on July 29, when he also announced record revenue above US$331 billion for fiscal year 2026 (ending on June 30), with Microsoft Cloud earnings surpassing US$214 billion and Azure earnings surpassing US$100 billion.

Marvell Technology has opened 100,000 square feet of additional semiconductor R&D space in Bengaluru and plans to double its India headcount over the next three years as part of a US$250 million investment program.

Qualcomm is moving more aggressively into data centers and automotive technology, aiming to reduce its dependence on smartphones and build new growth engines. The company is betting that custom AI silicon, server products, and long-term vehicle deals will help offset softer Apple revenue and position it deeper in infrastructure.

Qualcomm is raising prices across its product portfolio and accelerating a shift beyond smartphones as higher memory and manufacturing costs squeeze margins and Apple-related revenue falls. The company is leaning on automotive, data center, and Android demand to support growth while it works to offset a weaker premium handset mix.

Arm Holdings is preparing its first self-designed data center CPU, the Arm AGI CPU, for shipments by the end of calendar 2026, and expects silicon sales to become a separately reported revenue category in fiscal 2028. The change would give Arm a third reported revenue line alongside licensing and royalties as it expands from supplying processor designs to selling complete chips.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang once again voiced his support for open-weight and open-source AI, a form of model that has caught official attention in Washington after the release of the powerful Kimi K3 model from Chinese startup Moonshot AI. His comments added another voice to the ongoing debate over closed-source versus open-source approaches as the US considers restrictions on Chinese AI.

NXP Semiconductors' physical AI strategy extends beyond vehicles, factories and robots. The same control, connectivity and real-time processing capabilities are also giving the company a larger role in AI data center infrastructure, where it is targeting the systems that manage networking, cooling, security and power around increasingly complex accelerator platforms.

Despite robust performance in the automotive sector and growing demand for artificial intelligence, NXP Semiconductors' second-quarter earnings and third-quarter projections fell short of investor expectations due to cautious market sentiment regarding semiconductor valuations and heightened competition from Chinese chip manufacturers.