As quantum commercialization gathers pace worldwide, Taiwan is linking up with multiple countries to push for an Asia hub for quantum technology, industrial applications, international cooperation, and capital. On August 31, the Taiwan Association of Quantum Computing and Information Technology (TAQCIT), SEMI, and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research invited representatives from eight countries based in Taiwan to share details of the upcoming "2026 Taiwan Quantum Forum" and discuss whether Taiwan can become such a hub.

Hard hats and fire extinguishers will certainly have their place at K-Safety Expo 2026, but visitors arriving at BEXCO in Busan from September 2–4 may find that the modern safety industry increasingly speaks the language of AI, robots, sensors and connected infrastructure.

Japanese semiconductor materials suppliers Ajinomoto and Daikin Industries are expanding their presence in Taiwan as the AI boom fuels demand for advanced chip materials and encourages closer cooperation between suppliers and manufacturers.

K-Safety Expo 2026, South Korea's leading dedicated safety-industry exhibition, will open September 2 at BEXCO in Busan, bringing together companies, government agencies, research institutions and overseas buyers across disaster prevention, industrial safety, public security, fire and rescue, and transportation and maritime safety.

Foxlink and Yongwei Investment Holdings each held board meetings on the 31st and decided to participate in the tender offer for Shinfox Energy, planning to dispose of their Shinfox shares at NT$0.05 per share. The move would strip the Foxlink Group of control over Shinfox and reduce the financial drag from the renewable energy company's losses.

As AI packages grow larger, the next substrate battleground is rapidly extending from traditional organic materials to glass. Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEMCO) will make its first appearance at Semicon Taiwan 2026, with advanced packaging and glass substrate expert Gang Duan traveling to Taiwan to unveil the company's roadmap for next-generation advanced packaging substrates aimed at AI infrastructure.

BYD and Geely Auto were nearly neck and neck in vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2026, raising expectations of a close contest between China's two leading new-energy vehicle makers. The gap widened sharply in the second quarter, however, largely because BYD sold more vehicles overseas. Even so, stronger international sales have yet to reverse the company's profit decline.

Chinese large-model developer Z.ai says it can now support large-scale inference using roughly 100,000 domestically produced AI chips, while its GLM models are also moving closer to overseas cloud deployment.

A Chinese court has ordered the freezing of more than CNY2.14 billion (approx. US$318 million) in domestic assets belonging to Dutch semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia and its equipment division. The decision marks the latest escalation in an ongoing legal and geopolitical debate between the Netherlands-based chipmaker and its Chinese parent company, Wingtech Technology.

Nine listed Chinese memory and memory-adjacent chip companies have now filed their first-half 2026 results, and together they measure the depth of the current DRAM and NAND upcycle more precisely than any forecast. They also show how differently each company reached its number: some rode pricing, one rode an acquisition, another rode a stake revaluation, and the largest of them simply arrived at a scale nobody in the sector previously operated at.

JCET Group is sharply increasing spending as demand for artificial intelligence strains advanced packaging capacity worldwide. The Chinese chip tester and assembler said the shift could influence supply chains beyond China, as more AI and automotive chips rely on the back-end processes it is now prioritizing.

South Korean chip startup XCENA is pushing CXL beyond memory expansion and toward a new layer of server computing, unveiling measured results for its MX1 computational memory device at Hot Chips 2026 while expanding its work with Samsung Electronics on a rack-scale system.

Samsung Electronics has reportedly locked up as much as 70% of its memory production capacity under long-term supply agreements (LTAs), as relentless AI infrastructure demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) tightens the broader chip shortage. In some cases, spot prices for memory products are now as much as 5 times the LTA contract price.

Huawei Technologies increased first-half revenue in 2026 while profit fell sharply, highlighting the growing cost of its effort to build a self-sufficient technology stack spanning AI chips, smartphones, operating systems and computing infrastructure.

A South Korean-Indian joint venture has completed a semiconductor materials plant in South Korea, aiming to strengthen regional supply chains for photoresist materials and reduce reliance on Chinese raw materials.