China has formally launched its National Venture Capital Guidance Fund, a move that signals a major policy push to reshape the country's early-stage investment landscape and strengthen long-term support for strategic technologies amid slowing private capital activity

Japanese firms like Rohm and AOI Electronics built partnerships with Indian partners. Foxconn is mimicking its strategy in China, setting up a factory city in India

South Korean PNT has secured its first mass-production order for battery copper foil in China, marking a strategic expansion beyond its core battery equipment business into materials and strengthening its foothold in the Chinese market

The global aerospace and satellite industry did not experience a single, earthshaking breakthrough in 2025. Instead, it advanced through a series of consequential developments—subtle in isolation, but collectively transformative. The year marked steady progress across multiple fronts. The race in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) communications intensified. Space militarization accelerated. Early experiments in orbital computing emerged. Together, these shifts pushed the industry toward a more crowded, contested, and commercially driven space economy

South Korea's drive to build a domestic artificial intelligence semiconductor industry is hitting a key constraint. Despite gains in power efficiency and pricing, industry executives say the lack of large-scale validation environments is slowing commercial adoption and limiting the ability of local chips to compete beyond pilot deployments

The global space industry is accelerating toward commercialization. But recent developments in South Korea and China underscore how difficult—and uneven—that transition remains. In separate incidents late last year, South Korea's startup Innospace failed to place its launch vehicle into orbit. Meanwhile, China's new Long March 12A rocket fell short of recovering its first-stage booster on its maiden flight

After attending the 2025 Guangzhou Auto Show, DIGITIMES analyzed the latest strategies unveiled by leading automakers and suppliers in two pivotal areas: energy replenishment technologies and advanced intelligent driving. The conclusion was hard to miss. Chinese carmakers have accumulated deep technical capabilities in both domains and are moving steadily toward a long-held ambition: making electric vehicles refuel as quickly as gasoline cars, while bringing high-level autonomous driving into everyday use

Japan is preparing a major expansion of state support for advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence, with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) set to nearly quadruple related funding from fiscal year 2026, starting in April 2026

Huawei is clarifying how it intends to compete in global AI computing despite being cut off from leading-edge foundries and US-origin GPUs. Instead of chasing rivals on single-chip performance, the company is leaning into scale, systems engineering, and vertical integration—a strategy it is now preparing to test outside China, beginning with South Korea

A disclosure on China's government procurement platform shows that Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) has won a contract to supply a step-and-scan lithography system valued at CNY109 million (US$15.5 million). The buyer, identified only by a coded designation under China's Ministry of Science and Technology, has reignited industry scrutiny of Beijing's push to localize semiconductor manufacturing equipment

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, having cleared major legal overhangs, is accelerating the group's strategic reset. Months after completing its acquisition of Germany's FläktGroup, Samsung announced another landmark deal: the purchase of ZF Friedrichshafen's advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) business for EUR1.5 billion (US$1.8 billion)

The US government has decided not to impose additional semiconductor tariffs on China for the next 18 months, despite concluding that Beijing's state-led chip industry policies involve unfair subsidies and market distortion. DIGITIMES analyst Luke Lin stressed in a recent podcast that this should not be misinterpreted as a softening stance toward China

Samsung Electronics is prioritizing artificial intelligence adoption, local manufacturing, and consumer financing in India, foregoing an initial public offering for its local business. The company aims to strengthen its footprint in one of its most important growth markets through internal expansion and strategic investments

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are pushing forward their production schedules for sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory to February 2026. Industry sources and South Korean media reports confirm the accelerated timeline. The two companies aim to begin volume manufacturing of HBM4 months earlier than previously anticipated. The goal is to meet surging demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. By accelerating their timelines, the South Korean chipmakers seek to solidify their dominance in the AI memory market before global competitors can scale similar technologies

SK Hynix is scheduled to deliver final samples of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory to Nvidia in early January 2025. This comes as the South Korean chipmaker nears a February target for mass production of HBM4. The delivery follows a revised wafer run intended to resolve technical issues identified during earlier integration testing, according to DealSite. It marks a critical step in supporting Nvidia's next wave of artificial intelligence accelerators