Europe's intensifying heatwave is reshaping the region's air conditioner market, driving a surge in China's air conditioner exports and lifting demand for upstream power semiconductors, power management ICs and mature-node capacity.

Mobile system-on-chip (SoC) vendors are collectively upgrading flagship platforms to 2nm in 2026. Beyond the need for better specifications, the bigger goal is to avoid the most heavily booked 3nm process and secure more supply.

Taiwan plans to launch an emissions trading system (ETS) in 2028 as the next phase of its carbon pricing framework — a cap-and-trade market where companies buy and sell permits to emit greenhouse gases. However, environmental researchers and academics caution that the experiences of Japan, South Korea, and the European Union (EU) show that emissions trading markets take years to mature and operate effectively. With Taiwan's own carbon fee only recently taking effect, they argue the government should prioritize policy continuity and give businesses time to internalize carbon costs and implement decarbonization strategies before introducing a cap-and-trade regime.

As semiconductor manufacturing enters the 2nm era, conventional transistor scaling is approaching its physical limits. On June 25, 2026, IBM unveiled what it described as the world's first sub-1-nanometer chip technology, featuring a 0.7nm (7-angstrom) process node. The research chip integrates nearly 100 billion transistors into an area roughly the size of a fingernail, marking a significant milestone in semiconductor scaling.