US AI device startup Plaud unveiled its latest wearable recorder, the NotePin S, alongside a new desktop application at CES 2026. The products aim to enhance real-time recording, transcription, and key-point highlighting for knowledge workers managing meeting content.
The Indonesian Nickel Mining and Smelting Association (FINI) expects the country's smelters to require 340 million to 350 million tons of ore in 2026, an increase of about 40 million to 50 million tons. According to Reuters, Indonesia holds the world's largest nickel reserves but recently announced plans to reduce its 2026 production quota to bolster prices and increase government revenue.
Facing the memory shortage, PC companies are aggressively promoting new models at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), hoping to regain momentum. Acer rolled out multiple new series, including Aspire, Predator, and Swift AI. Dell introduced the return of its classic thin-and-light XPS lineup and revealed that its gaming brand Alienware will launch new products.
Ahead of the official opening of CES 2026, keynote speeches by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su focused attention on Physical AI and its application in real-world systems, with both companies using robotics demonstrations to illustrate their strategies.
South Korea's leading internet company, Naver, secured a dominant position in the search engine market in 2025, capturing 62.86% of the South Korean market share, more than twice Google's share. According to data from research firm Internet Trend, cited by Seoul Economic Daily and Yonhap News, Naver's share rose by 4.72pp from 58.14% in 2024.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his CES 2026 keynote to focus on agentic AI and Physical AI, outlining how the company is extending AI into systems that operate in the physical world. Supply-chain sources said that humanoid robots are viewed as one development direction for Physical AI, with implications for high-performance microcontrollers; however, training remains constrained by scarce and fragmented data.
xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, has raised US$20 billion in an upsized Series E funding round, surpassing its original US$15 billion target, with Nvidia joining as a strategic investor to support the expansion of large-scale AI computing infrastructure.
China has moved to tighten export controls on dual-use products to Japan. This step could have wide-ranging implications for supply chains spanning advanced materials, electronics, and defense-related manufacturing, while further straining already fragile bilateral relations.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang addressed concerns regarding recent memory supply shortages during a press conference at CES 2026, stating that Nvidia will be the exclusive consumer of sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) in the near term. Huang expressed confidence that this exclusivity will provide Nvidia with strategic advantages.
Nvidia has expressed optimism about resuming sales of its H200 AI chips to China, while stressing that any return to the market will proceed quietly, without public announcements or regulatory fanfare.
As 2026 opens, the global electric vehicle (EV) market is entering a pivotal phase. Tesla China has rolled out a five-year, zero-interest financing program covering its core models — Model 3, Model Y, and the six-seat Model Y L — paired with a CNY8,000 (approx. US$1145.52) paint-option incentive.
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