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Jun 2, 15:12
AI PCs and low-end MacBooks stir weak notebook market
The global notebook market is entering a new phase of competition as AI-driven products reshape demand, even as the broader recovery has fallen short of expectations. Apple is pressuring the low end with the MacBook Neo, while Nvidia is moving upmarket with the RTX Spark high-end AI PC.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan used his Computex 2026 keynote in Taipei to frame Intel's AI-era reset around execution, infrastructure, and deeper ties with Taiwan's PC and semiconductor supply chain.
As Europe and the US fall short of expectations for the automotive electrical/electronic architecture (E/EA) transition, traditional tier-1 suppliers are accelerating diversification efforts to offset slowing automotive growth. Among them, France-based Valeo, one of the world's top-15 automotive parts suppliers, is leveraging its automotive expertise to expand into faster-growing sectors including AI data center infrastructure, defense, robotics and small-mobility solutions.
COMPUTEX 2026 is underway in Taipei, and this year's edition has distinguished itself with an unusually dense lineup of top tech company CEOs on the speakers' roster, according to Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) chairman James Huang.
Ennoconn, a Taiwan-based industrial PC (IPC) vendor, said on June 1 at a forum in Taipei that its physical AI business is expected to exceed NT$10 billion (US$318.93 million) in 2026, as it deepens ties with Austria-based smart IoT solutions supplier Kontron and expands commercialization. The company said the partnership could generate an additional NT$10 billion in synergies by 2028.
Anthropic announced that it has filed confidential paperwork to go public on June 1 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, pulling ahead of rival OpenAI for now in the IPO race. The number of shares on offer and the stock price have yet to be decided.
Nvidia used GTC Taipei on June 1, 2026, to unveil RTX Spark, also known as N1X, a new AI PC system-on-chip designed for native AI agent workloads rather than mainstream Windows PCs. The chip appears designed to fill a gap in consumer hardware that cannot reliably handle local, autonomous AI tasks.
Power Integrations (PI) has announced two ultra-thin, compact auxiliary power supply (PSU) reference designs built for 800VDC AI data centers. PI principal training engineer Jason Yan said the ultra-compact solution, designed for Nvidia Kyber liquid-cooled blade-rack systems, uses a highly integrated GaN design that saves 30% of PCB space and reduces component count by 30% compared with conventional silicon carbide (SiC) solutions.
Foxconn Technology Group used COMPUTEX 2026 to present a broader AI infrastructure push, signaling a move beyond AI server supply and into token factory services. The company highlighted its "3+3+3" transformation strategy spanning manufacturing, platform applications, robotics, healthcare, and space-related computing.
Intel is expanding its data center portfolio with new Xeon 6+ processors, Ethernet E835 networking products, and fresh details on its Crescent Island AI accelerator, positioning the CPU as a central control point for the next phase of AI infrastructure.
Alphabet said it will raise US$80 billion in equity to fund a rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure as demand for its services accelerates, signaling a more capital-intensive phase of growth that could reshape global cloud and chip supply chains. Berkshire Hathaway separately agreed to invest US$10 billion, underscoring investor conviction in the company's long-term AI build-out.
OpenAI is expanding its robotics efforts and recruiting engineers across hardware, operations, systems, and machine learning to develop robots capable of performing useful tasks in the physical world.