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Tuesday 4 August 2026
China claims 8 in 10 robots worldwide are made at home

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said humanoid robots have become a key symbol of the country's emerging manufacturing sector, claiming that 8 of every 10 humanoid and quadruped robots sold globally are produced by Chinese companies. The remarks came at a July 31 press briefing and also highlighted progress in IC design, semiconductor equipment, wafer fabrication, and packaging and testing.

Tuesday 4 August 2026
Onsemi details AI data center momentum, pricing strategy in Q2 earnings call

Onsemi's leadership fielded a wide range of investor questions following the company's second-quarter 2026 results, with much of the discussion centered on its accelerating AI data center business, capacity utilization, and how the company is managing rising input costs.

Tuesday 4 August 2026
Taiwan specialty chemical firm expands Taiwan, China capacity on AI materials boom, eyes 20% revenue gain in 2026
Taiwan-based specialty chemicals supplier Johnson Fine Chemical expects robust growth in electronic materials demand driven by AI, high-performance computing (HPC) and advanced communications applications. The company is expanding production capacity in both Taiwan and China and plans to raise prices for selected products by 10-20% in the third quarter of 2026 to offset higher raw material costs. Management forecasts revenue growth of about 20% in 2026 from a year earlier, with profits also expected to increase, while 2027 is projected to deliver even stronger results.
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
MediaTek sees SerDes 448G as copper's final battleground
The question of where the limits of cloud AI high-speed interconnects will fall has been a major market focus over the past six months. MediaTek addressed the issue for the first time in its 2026 second-quarter earnings call, saying its work on the more advanced SerDes 448G specification is roughly halfway complete.
Tuesday 4 August 2026
RichWave says Wi-Fi 7 momentum stays strong in 2H26

RichWave Technology said at a recent earnings call that Wi-Fi 7 adoption continues to rise rapidly, with strong demand from telecom operators and retailers. The radio frequency (RF) front-end supplier said that the second half of 2026 should be slightly better than the first half of the year overall, but warned that tight supply of memory and passive components could affect shipment timing.

Monday 3 August 2026
FICG launches Singapore-Malaysia dual-core strategy
FICG's advanced manufacturing subsidiary PRO3C signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with AME Elite Consortium Berhad, a Malaysia-listed integrated industrial space solutions provider. FICG also signed an MOU with JTC, Singapore's government agency for industrial master planning and infrastructure development.
Sunday 2 August 2026
Pittsburgh, Switzerland experts challenge Taiwan to move beyond robotics hardware
As AI shifts toward agentic and physical applications, industry observers say competition will no longer hinge on hardware manufacturing alone, but on the ability to integrate hardware and software. At this year's AI WAVE SHOW, foreign experts urged Taiwan to move beyond its role as a hardware supplier and become a key player in the global AI ecosystem.
Saturday 1 August 2026
Realtek, Elan, and Parade set the tone for PC chip demand
As the second half of the year begins, major Taiwanese IC design firms including Realtek Semiconductor, Elan Microelectronics, and Parade Technologies are holding earnings briefings this week to outline market conditions for the traditional peak season. Because the three companies hold key positions in the PC chip market, their comments are being watched as a barometer for PC chip demand in the second half of the year.
Saturday 1 August 2026
Lite-On expands InP optical push with US$34.3 million stake in Singapore's DenseLight
Lite-On Technology is extending its optical core competencies into system-level optical communications for AI data centers, announcing a US$34.3 million investment for a 21% stake in Singapore-based indium phosphide (InP) optical component maker DenseLight Photonics, along with a seat on its board.
Friday 31 July 2026
Qualcomm, MediaTek set Sept flagship SoC showdown
Qualcomm and MediaTek are preparing to unveil their latest 2nm flagship smartphone system-on-chip (SoC) platforms in September 2026, with both brands expected to launch standard and upgraded chips at the same time to meet different customer needs. Supply chain sources say the two chipmakers will no longer rely on a single product for flagship phones in 2026, but instead offer two separate specifications.
Thursday 30 July 2026
Less hardware, smarter AI: how a Taiwan startup is making smart glasses weightless

A Taiwan startup says it has found a way to hide advanced eye-tracking technology inside what looks like an ordinary pair of glasses — using just one camera and a single LED light source.

Wednesday 29 July 2026
Corning bets on SiPh and CPO to drive AI data center growth

Corning expects AI infrastructure to become an increasingly powerful growth engine, outlining how its glass technologies will move beyond traditional optical fiber and into silicon photonics (SiPh) and co-packaged optics (CPO) for next-generation AI data centers.

Wednesday 29 July 2026
TDK and LG Innotek form partnership on physical AI sensors
TDK and LG Innotek are joining forces to develop sensors for Physical AI, a move that could shape future robotics and automation products used worldwide. The collaboration combines optical, tactile, and motion technologies, with an early focus on humanoid robots and advanced sensing modules for broader global deployment.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
OpenAI plans to test first hardware device in South Korea
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has said that the company may use South Korea as a testbed for its first hardware device, widely believed to be a screenless speaker. However, it remains to be seen whether an ongoing court case brought on by Apple could influence the product's timeline.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
Non-core parts makers delay Southeast Asia capex as China-US tensions ease
Geopolitical tensions and the US-China trade war are pushing global supply chains to shift their priorities from efficiency toward resilience and security. But for non-core components makers, customers have not been as strict as expected on production-location requirements, giving companies room to slow or rethink planned moves into Southeast Asia.
Wednesday 29 July 2026
LG Innotek tops second quarter forecasts on stronger camera module and substrate sales
LG Innotek reported stronger-than-expected results in the second quarter of 2026, helped by an improving market for camera modules and integrated circuit substrates. According to South Korean media including Financial News and Newsis, the electronics supplier also said first-half revenue exceeded KRW10 trillion for the first time.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
Panel makers reject 10% polarizer price increase as China suppliers retreat
Rising upstream material prices are continuing to pressure the polarizer industry. During the second quarter, polarizer suppliers in China and Taiwan sought price increases of about 10% from panel makers for the third quarter to offset higher costs.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
LG wins Nvidia certification for 600kW CDU and lands North America data center project
LG Electronics said on July 27 that its 600kW coolant distribution unit has received Nvidia certification after passing more than 100 standardized AI factory technology validations. The company also said it recently secured cooling projects for a North America hyperscale cloud service provider and the Sinar Mas data center in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
Smart glasses ignite AI device battle as China nears 80% global brand share
Smart glasses are emerging as a major next-generation consumer device as breakthroughs in generative AI and large language models (LLMs) reshape the wearable market. Once constrained by bulky designs and limited use cases, smart glasses are now drawing investment from global tech giants and hardware startups alike, while also redrawing the supply chain.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
Apple, Micron's clash over CXMT puts White House in the middle
Apple and Micron are fighting over whether the smartphone maker can buy memory chips from Chinese manufacturer ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) for non-US devices, a move opposed by Micron. Both companies are lobbying the administration of US President Donald Trump, which could force him to make an uncomfortable choice between his goals of cheaper prices or domestic chip production.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
Nvidia's Vera targets AI server growth, with CSP adoption the key test
Nvidia is pushing into the server CPU market with its Vera chip as AI infrastructure competition enters a new phase, seeking to evolve from a chip supplier into a full AI computing systems provider. But the company still needs cloud service providers (CSPs) to embrace the platform at scale if it wants to challenge Intel and AMD in servers.
Tuesday 28 July 2026
Optics remain hardest technological hurdle for smart glasses, says Jorjin chairman
Jorjin Technology chairman Wen-lung Liang believes that smart glasses that combine AI with spatial computing are the next smartphone-killers, going beyond mere hardware upgrades to launch a far-reaching revolution in human-computer interaction (HCI).
Monday 27 July 2026
Apple reportedly delays smart glasses launch to late 2027 due to privacy risks
Apple plans to present its first smart glasses during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2027 before opening them for sale later in the year. This timeline has reportedly been set back from an original introduction this year due to work being done to figure out how to balance users' privacy with the many AI functions the products are set to offer.
Monday 27 July 2026
Nvidia's Vera CPU targets go beyond Intel and AMD
After Nvidia has grown into a global giant on GPUs, why is it suddenly delving into CPUs? At first glance, its Vera is entering the server CPU market, where its rivals are naturally Intel's Xeon and AMD's EPYC. But Nvidia's real target may be much broader, including cloud providers such as Amazon and Google that design their own CPUs.