Coupang announced on October 21 that it signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to jointly promote retail innovation and supply chain resilience in Taiwan. The LOI was signed at the MOEA's 2025 Taiwan Business Alliance Conference by Robert Porter, Coupang's Global Affairs Director, and Deputy Minister Cynthia Kiang.

South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions has announced a partnership with the Sarawak state government in Borneo, marking its official entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market. According to South Korea's News 1 and MTN, Rebellions signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sarawak's IC design company, SMD Semiconductor, to collaborate on AI chip design and development. The cooperation includes joint semiconductor development, the Sarawak state government's data center initiatives, and joint marketing activities.

OpenAI's recent chip procurement deals with AMD and Broadcom signal a strategic effort to reduce reliance on Nvidia Corporation, the dominant supplier in the AI hardware space. Although Nvidia maintains about 95% market share in AI chips, market analysts emphasize OpenAI's need to secure multiple suppliers to meet its massive computing demands.

As AI server deployment accelerates, Taiwan's four major motherboard manufacturers are experiencing notable shifts in growth momentum and product mix. Following ASRock's server motherboard and system subsidiary ASRock Rack preparing for a November 2025 IPO, Gigabyte's Giga Computing is set to follow suit by the end of 2025 at the earliest. These two subsidiaries have become key profit drivers for their parent companies.

Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has introduced DeepSeek-OCR, an open-source model accompanied by a research paper that pioneers a novel "optical compression" method aimed at reducing token processing requirements for large language models (LLMs). The technique allows LLMs to manage lengthy texts with up to 20 times less memory consumption, addressing a significant bottleneck in AI performance.

Apple has hit fresh roadblocks in its ambitious attempt to reinvent the iPad with a giant foldable display, according to multiple reports. The device, internally code-named J312, was originally targeted for a 2028 launch, but now, engineers and industry watchers believe it may not arrive until 2029, or possibly never.

The AI wave shows no sign of slowing, and AI glasses have become the next frontier where technology meets wearables, following smartphones and wireless earbuds. As of late 2025, China's AI glasses market is heating up fast, with Alibaba and Baidu ready to debut their own models within six months, marking the start of true industrialisation and a coming shake-up from brands to the supply chain.

In 2024, AI drove Taiwan's semiconductor output to surpass NT$5 trillion (approx. US$162.9 billion). It is expected to grow another 20% in 2025 to reach NT$6.3 trillion. Additionally, eighteen wafer fabs are scheduled to begin construction, with operations starting successively from 2026 to 2027. All eyes remain on TSMC's fabs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) estimates that by 2028, Taiwan's semiconductor output could reach NT$8 trillion.

US President Donald Trump is set to personally attend oral arguments on November 5, 2025, at the US Supreme Court regarding the legality of his administration's reciprocal tariffs—a rare move underscoring the critical importance of the case for his signature trade policies.

As the US-China AI rivalry heats up, Huawei Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Consumer BG, Richard Yu, has announced a "Global Top AI Talent Recruitment Order" on Weibo, declaring Huawei's plan to form a world-class AI team to build leading large models and pursue the summit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

China's generative artificial intelligence (AI) sector experienced rapid expansion in the first half of 2025, with the number of generative AI users reaching 515 million, representing a nearly 100% increase since the end of 2024.