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Apr 30
Alphabet's AI surge, by the numbers: Cloud, search and subscriptions rewire growth

Alphabet's first-quarter 2026 results point to a company increasingly defined by AI-driven momentum across search, cloud, and subscriptions—with CEO Sundar Pichai framing the quarter as evidence that its "full-stack" AI strategy is beginning to translate into measurable business performance.

OpenAI is reworking its US$500 billion Stargate initiative, shifting from a fixed data center joint venture toward a more flexible strategy for securing computing capacity as demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure accelerates.

Amid the flourishing commercial generative AI landscape dominated by large-parameter language models, Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has reversed earlier doubts about its Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) project. NSTC minister Cheng-Wen Wu has instructed the formation of a TAIDE task force led by Mark Liao, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Information Science, to develop a multimodal foundational AI model supporting diverse industries across Taiwan.

Hardware design is entering a system-level reset, with Synopsys moving simulation to the core of product development. With Ansys 2026 R1, simulation and analysis (S&A) shifts from post-design verification to a front-end decision engine, shaping architecture from system to silicon.

Lite-On profit rises on surge in AI-driven cloud demand
May 2, 07:37

Lite-On Technology reported first-quarter revenue of NT$43.4 billion (approx. US$1.35 billion), up 19% from a year earlier, as surging demand for AI infrastructure fueled rapid growth in its cloud-related business.

Benefiting from the continued expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) computing power demand, Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII), a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn), reported first-quarter 2026 revenue that far exceeded market expectations. Revenue reached CNY251.08 billion (approx. US$36.74 billion), up 56.52% year over year, while net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reached CNY10.60 billion, soaring 102.55%, with profit growth significantly outpacing revenue.

China-based electronics manufacturer Goertek is deepening its manufacturing push in Vietnam, committing an additional US$20 million to expand its Bac Ninh operations, reinforcing the country's role as a key production base for global consumer electronics supply chains.

OpenAI's aggressive push to secure AI computing capacity is facing growing scrutiny, with signs that its multibillion-dollar data center procurement plans may be reassessed, reportedly raising questions for a supply chain led by Quanta Computer, Wistron and Foxconn.

China's $1M Nvidia AI servers expose global chip squeeze
May 1

Prices for high-end AI servers in China are diverging sharply from global benchmarks, with systems built around Nvidia's B300 chips now fetching scarcity-driven premiums that reflect tightening export controls and surging domestic demand.

China's National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen has launched the LineShine supercomputer project, aiming to break into the exascale tier with a CPU-only architecture that excludes both GPU accelerators and foreign components, challenging the current global trajectory of supercomputing design.
The deployment density of service and mobile robots in commercial environments has surged over the past three years. What began as narrowly defined automation—inspection units in factories or delivery bots in controlled settings—has expanded into restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, warehouses, and even outdoor logistics. Yet despite this rapid proliferation, most of these machines still operate on rigid rules and pre-programmed workflows, closer to moving appliances than adaptive systems.
Competition in humanoid robotics has intensified in recent years, with advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning often cited as the main drivers of progress. However, attention is increasingly turning to hardware limitations—particularly actuators used in robotic hands and arms—which some industry participants argue remain the key barrier to achieving human-level dexterity and commercial viability.