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May 7
Alphabet's global debt blitz underscores explosive AI funding boom across tech industry
Alphabet has significantly expanded its global borrowing program to finance artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, raising nearly US$17 billion through euro- and Canadian dollar-denominated bonds in its latest funding push, according to Bloomberg. The move includes its largest-ever euro bond sale and its first issuance in Canadian dollars, underscoring the scale of capital required for AI-related investments.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and Device Solutions (DS) head Jun Young-Hyun, along with Device eXperience (DX) head Roh Tae-moon, issued a joint statement to all employees on the progress of wage negotiations on May 7, marking their first public remarks on the talks. The move comes as Samsung tries to defuse labor tensions ahead of a union strike deadline.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) announced on May 6 that, excluding TSMC, about 20 Taiwan companies plan to invest US$35 billion in the US. The statement comes after US President Donald Trump issued reciprocal tariffs in April 2025, which unexpectedly helped speed up long-stalled progress on a Taiwan-US economic and trade agreement.
Compal formed a strategic partnership with European AI cloud provider Verda to accelerate deployment of next-generation AI infrastructure across Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the companies announced. The collaboration, revealed in early May, will see Compal supply GPU server systems and high-density, liquid-cooled AI platforms tailored for large-context model training and high-concurrency inference workloads.

Samsung Electronics is facing mounting pressure from workers seeking a larger share of the AI-driven semiconductor boom, as unions threaten an 18-day walkout and the dispute puts renewed scrutiny on the company's decades-old performance-pay system.

Taiwanese solder materials manufacturer Shenmao Technology said surging demand from the artificial-intelligence server supply chain, coupled with expanding shipments to Southeast Asia and rising processing fees, drove a sharp acceleration in both revenue and profit during the first quarter of 2026.
AMD data center revenue surpassed Intel's for the first time in the first quarter of 2026, highlighting how the rise of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping demand across the server CPU market and shifting attention back toward x86 computing infrastructure.
Google has unveiled the Fitbit Air, a screenless wrist-worn health tracker positioned as the most affordable and lightweight device in the Fitbit lineup, available for pre-order at US$99.99 with a target on-shelf date of May 26 for a special edition variant.
Anpec plans midyear 15% price hike to protect PMIC margins
May 8, 08:32
Taiwan power management IC (PMIC) maker Anpec Electronics recently said its 2026 growth momentum will mainly rely on demand in non-PC applications to offset declines in PC-related business, while more meaningful expansion is not expected until 2027. The company also said rising wafer packaging and testing costs will drive a price increase of its products by up to 15% in June-July to preserve gross margins.
Hyperscaler AI capital spending is rapidly reshaping global EMS and ODM strategies, driving firms like Luxshare to pivot from smartphones toward AI infrastructure opportunities, while US peers such as Flex restructure around data center power systems. With hyperscaler capex exceeding US$800 billion annually, supply chains are reorganizing around AI servers, cooling, and high-speed interconnect demand, redefining competitive dynamics across China and the US.
Chenbro Micom said demand driven by AI deployments remained clear for the second quarter and the second half of 2026 as the company accelerated localization of manufacturing and operations to bolster resilience against regional conflicts and potential tariff changes. The firm reported cumulative revenue of NT$9.17 billion (approx. US$290 million) for the first four months of 2026, a 49.7% year-over-year increase, and April revenue of NT$2.06 billion, up 4.6% year-over-year, which it attributed to rising end-market AI application demand that is fueling data center hardware build-outs.
Memory shortages choke AI storage orders, says Hitachi Vantara
May 8, 08:31

AI-driven demand is turning storage into one of the hottest segments in enterprise infrastructure, but tightening memory supply and rising component costs are creating growing pressure on customers, according to executives at Hitachi Vantara Taiwan.