US sanctions are taking a toll on one of China's top chipmakers, Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), as its share of the global NAND flash memory market has slipped below 5%

China has officially introduced its K-visa, a new immigration pathway aimed at attracting foreign STEM graduates, just as the US sharply raised H-1B visa fees to US$100,000 per applicant. The move, effective October 1, underscores Beijing's effort to draw global technology talent amid intensifying US-China competition in innovation and geopolitics

The global race in third-generation semiconductors is intensifying, with larger silicon carbide (SiC) wafers seen as critical to cutting costs and enhancing power device performance. While global leaders remain centered on 6-inch and 8-inch wafers, Chinese firms are rapidly advancing 12-inch SiC development to secure an early lead in the materials race

Samsung Electronics has reportedly appointed Rajesh Krishnan as the new head of Samsung Semiconductor India Research (SSIR), signaling a strategic push to strengthen local R&D leadership while accelerating its expansion in the Indian semiconductor market, according to The Seoul Economy Daily

SK Telecom (SKT) has established an internal independent company, AI CIC, to consolidate and expand its AI business, accelerating AI innovation. The company plans to invest KRW5 trillion (US$3.5 billion) over the next five years, aiming for AI revenue of KRW5 trillion by 2030

Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi service, gaining traction in China, is fast-tracking expansion abroad with Southeast Asia and Australia as its next targets. Halton Niu, GM of Overseas Business at Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group, said the company is in talks with governments in Southeast Asia and Australia to explore pilots and service launches. Baidu is also in discussions with regulators in the Middle East and Europe. In Dubai, Apollo Go has already obtained 50 autonomous test permits, expanding its fleet to 100 vehicles

Huawei is set to expand Ascend AI chip output, seizing on Nvidia's shrinking position in China as US export curbs and Beijing's security mandates squeeze the American company's market access. According to Bloomberg, Huawei plans to produce about 600,000 Ascend 910C chips in 2026 — more than twice its 2025 volume — with total Ascend output climbing to 1.6 million dies, a sign that Huawei and partner SMIC are alleviating capacity constraints

BOE Technology, a major Apple display panel supplier, has established a wholly owned subsidiary to expand into robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) software. Sina and ICsmart, citing Qichacha data, reported that BOE's new subsidiary, Beijing BOE Robot, was registered with CNY200 million (approx. US$28 million) in capital to focus on industrial robots and AI software. The company has already assembled a specialized robotics team to drive research, development, and manufacturing

China's PCB industry has, in recent years, been entangled in a vicious price war, leading many local PCB manufacturers to collapse under the pressure of internal cutthroat competition. This underlying issue is now spreading upstream to the copper-clad laminate (CCL) supply chain

US-based foundry GlobalFoundries (GF) has faced numerous challenges in its China strategy, from halting investment in a 12-inch fab in Chengdu to shifting toward mature process partnerships. The company recently announced the opening of a new office in Beijing, signaling its commitment to navigating US-China tech tensions and domestic competition while deepening its presence in the Chinese semiconductor market

A fire broke out on September 26, 2025, at South Korea's National Information Resources Service (NIRS), disrupting 647 government services spanning finance, administration, and other sectors. The blaze originated from lithium batteries supplied by LG Energy Solution (LGES) at NIRS's main office in Daejeon, prompting ongoing recovery efforts, according to Chosun Biz and Seoul Economy Daily

DeepSeek unveiled its next-generation large language model, DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp, on September 29, 2025, and released it as open source on Hugging Face. The new model features a sparse attention architecture that reduces computational resource consumption while improving inference efficiency, especially for long-text tasks, advancing China's AI software-hardware collaboration

At Xiaomi's 2025 annual conference, founder Lei Jun spoke with calm restraint about the company's self-developed Xring O1 chip. Yet beneath that composure were moments of risk and suspense: the US$20 million bill for the first TSMC 3nm tape-out, engineers guarding chip samples in an unmarked paper bag at the airport, and the late-night message, "system lit up." When Lei answered his first call powered by the Xring O1, the wave of emotion was indescribable, the kind only insiders could fully understand

Prices for LCD TV panels stabilized in the third quarter, following months of decline, and remained flat across all sizes in August and September. As the industry moves into the fourth quarter, demand for LCD TV panels is expected to soften. However, Chinese producers are set to scale back output during the National Day holiday. Industry executives anticipate that supply and demand will remain balanced through year-end, limiting price swings; however, a rebound in the first quarter of 2026 cannot be ruled out