Taiwan and the US finalized the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) on February 13, establishing a mutual 15% tariff rate and commitments on food security and defense resilience, while business groups urged immediate parliamentary action to prevent possible US reassessment.

On February 12, Taiwan and the US officially signed the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) in Washington, D.C. The US side's tariff reductions for Taiwan will take effect upon completion of its domestic procedures and publication in the US Federal Register.

Taiwan's heavy electrical industry kicked off 2026 with strong performance, driven by robust orders from Taiwan Power Company's (Taipower) grid resilience projects, and sustained demand for grid upgrades in the US. Major players—including Shihlin Electric and Engineering Corporation (SEEC), Chung-Hsin Electric and Machinery (CHEM), Fortune Electric, and Allis Electric—all reported record-high January revenues compared to previous years, reflecting a simultaneous surge in both export orders and domestic infrastructure demand for transformers.

Amazon Web Services' (AWS) Trainium 3 servers, slated for mass production in the second quarter of 2026, have sharply reduced their planned use of liquid cooling, supply chain sources say, reversing an earlier 50:50 air‑to‑liquid split to roughly 90% air‑cooled and 10% liquid or less as production nears. This change could slow broader adoption of liquid cooling in AI server fleets.

As global efforts accelerate the development of home healthcare in a bid to alleviate resource pressures on frontline medical institutions, home care is set to become a core component of future healthcare systems. In response to this clear market trend, Taiwan is focusing on leveraging its existing ICT strengths alongside its healthcare system advantages to tap into new industry growth momentum.

Anthropic has hired Oxford philosopher Amanda Askell to teach its flagship model Claude ethical behavior, a move that reframes the company's competition with other AI labs as a contest over trust and governance rather than solely technical prowess.

Minister of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Cheng-wen Wu has recently sparked a firestorm across Taiwan's academic community. His blunt critique of long-standing structural problems—punctuated by provocative phrases such as "very shameful" and "despised"—quickly ignited debate over whether Taiwan's research system has become overly dependent on metrics, entrenched in factionalism, and driven by incentives that prioritize quantity over meaningful impact.

Foxconn Technology Group held its 2026 All-Foxconn Sports Games on February 12, drawing 17,000 employees and family members and more than 30,000 participants in total. Chairman Young Liu announced that the group's 2025 revenue set a record above NT$8 trillion (US$254.4 billion).

Lenovo said surging memory prices are likely to weigh on global PC and smartphone unit demand in 2026, prompting the company to double down on diversified sourcing, premium product mix and dynamic pricing to protect margins, even as AI becomes its fastest-growing revenue engine.

US Ambassador Jamieson Greer oversaw the signing of a comprehensive Agreement on Reciprocal Trade between the US and Taiwan on February 12, 2026. The agreement, reached under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US (TECRO), is designed to eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers while enhancing the resilience of high-technology supply chains.