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Tuesday 14 July 2026
Analysis: Why Meta's AI strategy sparked a market misread
Reports that Meta is considering leasing out idle AI computing capacity have rattled investors. But treating Meta's predicament as a warning sign for the entire AI industry is a classic case of overgeneralization.
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Thursday 16 July 2026
Commentary: Xi Jinping elevates Sovereign AI, diplomacy, ecosystems into China's next AI strategy
The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opens in Shanghai on July 17, with Chinese President Xi Jinping set to attend and deliver a keynote speech.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Commentary: Ennoconn-Kontron deal highlights physical AI supply chain reshuffle
AI technologies and applications have matured rapidly in recent years. That has driven trends such as edge AI and physical AI. The shift has also affected industrial computer (IPC) makers, which have long focused on end-point applications on the factory floor and at other field sites.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Commentary: CXMT IPO binds China's DRAM supply chain into one ecosystem
CXMT's STAR Market IPO has become more than a fundraising exercise. The strategic placement roster shows how China's largest DRAM maker is using the capital market to connect semiconductor suppliers, AI cloud providers, device brands, automakers, and state-backed investors, reinforcing a domestic memory ecosystem.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Commentary: Chip lead times extend as cloud AI squeezes capacity
Reports of longer chip lead times have been mounting. ADI has notified customers that, as recovering demand tightens supply, lead times for some analog chip products have stretched to six months, and it has urged customers to place orders early to avoid delivery delays. Meanwhile, a channel player said STMicroelectronics (ST) MCU lead times have extended to 52 weeks, prompting distributors to begin asking customers about demand for all of 2027.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Exclusive: Advanced packaging outpaces front-end growth while NPO paves way for commercial CPO
Generative AI is accelerating demand for computing power, memory and data bandwidth, shifting semiconductor innovation beyond front-end processes toward advanced packaging, silicon photonics (SiPh) and Co-Packaged Optics (CPO). Benjamin Hein, CEO Electronics and Executive Board member at Merck, said advanced packaging materials are poised to outgrow front-end process materials and the broader materials market, while Near-Packaged Optics (NPO) will bridge the industry's transition to commercial CPO.
Thursday 16 July 2026
Column: From K-Semiconductor to AI superpower —How South Korea is taking its next chip leap
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung unveiled the country's Three Mega Projects for AI and Semiconductors in late June 2026, an ambitious national strategy designed to strengthen South Korea's global leadership in artificial intelligence and semiconductors. The initiative centers on three pillars—semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers—and aims to double the nation's DRAM output within five years while expanding capabilities in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), advanced packaging, AI processors, and next-generation memory technologies. It also seeks to extend South Korea's semiconductor footprint beyond the Seoul metropolitan region.
Tuesday 14 July 2026
Column: Digital AI and Physical AI follow the same growth logic
At a humanoid robotics summit in Tokyo in May 2026, I saw a consulting firm's global labor automation map for Physical AI. After returning, I recreated the same map using the firm's research on Digital AI job functions. Placing the two side by side revealed something unexpected.
Tuesday 14 July 2026
Interview: UK's AI sovereignty pitch — research at home, scale with Taiwan
As the world enters an AI-centric era, the global race for technological leadership is no longer defined only by who can build the most advanced models. It is increasingly shaped by who can secure compute, deploy infrastructure at scale, reduce energy constraints, and turn research into commercial capability.
Monday 13 July 2026
AI's new gatekeepers: US and China tighten grip on frontier models
The world's most powerful AI models are encountering a new constraint beyond chips, data and engineering talent: governments increasingly want a say in when frontier systems are released, who may access them and which capabilities should remain restricted.
Saturday 11 July 2026
Interview: Why Geckos bets materials, not chips, will decide the next AI performance leap
As generative AI fuels rapid growth in demand for high-performance computing (HPC), the semiconductor industry is shifting from a process race to a materials race. Geckos chairman Shen Tsung-huan says that as chip manufacturing moves to 2nm and even more advanced nodes, gains in AI computing power are no longer just a chip design issue, but are increasingly constrained by the thermal conductivity and high-frequency signal transmission capabilities of materials.
Friday 10 July 2026
Insight: TSMC's 2nm lead widens, Intel 14A slips beyond 2030, Samsung 4nm fills on HBM4 demand
Samsung Electronics' preliminary earnings have shaken financial markets. Drawing on a report from a US brokerage, DIGITIMES Intelligence analyst Luke Lin examined the actual progress of advanced-node capacity expansion at TSMC, Intel, and Samsung, arguing that market expectations in several areas have run ahead of reality.
Thursday 9 July 2026
Commentary: China's AI chip race leaves 15 chipmakers chasing SMIC's 7nm capacity
China's bid to replace Nvidia in AI chips faces a constraint more immediate than design capability: SMIC's limited 7nm-class manufacturing capacity.
Thursday 9 July 2026
Analysis: Sovereign AI is chipmaking's next growth driver — but not everyone gets a seat
Where will cloud AI's next wave of growth come from? Increasingly, the market is answering with two words: sovereign AI.
Thursday 9 July 2026
Interview: UK courts Taiwan suppliers for AI hardware buildout
The UK is pitching itself as a new base and technology partner for Taiwanese electronics suppliers, seeking to turn its AI infrastructure push into a market and investment opportunity for companies in chips, packaging, servers, cooling, power, and data centers.
Tuesday 7 July 2026
Exclusive: Geckos bets on AI materials beyond nano copper powders and CPO waveguides
As generative AI drives rapid growth in high-performance computing (HPC) demand, the semiconductor industry is shifting from process-node competition to materials competition. Geckos chairman Raymond Shen said that once chip manufacturing advances to 2nm and beyond, improvements in AI computing power are no longer just a chip-design issue, but are increasingly constrained by materials' heat dissipation and high-frequency signal transmission capabilities.