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Jul 23, 10:31
SpaceX's in-house PCB ambitions unlikely to dent Taiwan suppliers, industry says

With SpaceX's first public earnings report approaching, investors are looking for fresh insight into the company's operations and future satellite deployment plans, viewing the results as an important barometer for the global satellite communications market.

US drone startup Neros Technologies won a contract worth up to US$500 million from the US Army to supply low-cost first-person view attack drones. The deal makes Neros a new vendor in the military's push to expand expendable drones and rebuild supply capacity for battlefield use.

The rapid growth of AI data traffic is pushing quartz timing components toward three key technical upgrades: lower phase noise, reduced jitter and greater frequency accuracy. At the same time, SpaceX's continuing satellite deployment plans are creating fresh demand for frequency-control components such as filters, particularly benefiting suppliers capable of rapidly producing customized solutions.

SpaceX is scheduled to release its second-quarter financial results after US markets close on August 4, marking the company's first earnings report since its public listing in June.

As geopolitical tensions push strategic industries from AI and semiconductors into space, Pegatron Chairman T.H. Tung said Taiwan is ready to compete. Speaking on July 21, Tung said Taiwan's satellite component self-sufficiency rate has climbed above 85%, and that scaling up production would drive down costs and unlock economies of scale.

India now has a homegrown, privately built ticket to orbit, and its arrival lands squarely in the middle of a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) contest that until recently was framed as a two-power race between the US and China.

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan reviewed four versions of a special bill for drone procurement on the 16th but reached no conclusion, leaving the measure pending further deliberation. The debate centered on how much of each drone should be made in Taiwan and whether production and storage sites should be spread across regions to protect combat capability.

Taiwan's legislature has moved toward stronger backing for drone research and production following a political shift in June, as the government seeks to close a capability gap in its defense buildup. The Executive Yuan had proposed an eight-year special defense budget of NT$1.25 trillion (US$38.7 billion), but the Legislative Yuan approved an opposition-backed version that capped spending at NT$780 billion, NT$470 billion below the Cabinet's proposal.

As frequency-control components move toward higher frequencies and smaller form factors, Tai-Saw Technology is leveraging synergies across its diversified product portfolio to expand into optical communications, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and drone supply chains. Tight industry capacity and rising raw material costs, however, have extended lead times for some products to 10–12 weeks, prompting the company to gradually expand production.

SpaceX is in talks with the US Department of Defense (DoD) to provide billions of dollars' worth of data center capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, marking a potential expansion of the company's role from launch services and satellite communications into AI infrastructure. The discussions remain ongoing and could still fall through, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Chinese foreign interference in the Netherlands' strategic industries should be treated as a systemic, long-term threat rather than a series of isolated incidents, according to "Beyond Borders," a report published under the China Knowledge Network (CKN) and written by analysts at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS). The study warns that while individual acts of espionage, coercion, or influence may look manageable on their own, their aggregate effect risks eroding the Netherlands' technological edge, economic independence, and strategic autonomy.

Taiwan plans to increase its technology budget by 6.2% in 2027 to accelerate investment in artificial intelligence (AI), space technology and net-zero innovation. The move is also meant to strengthen long-term industrial competitiveness through closer collaboration with the private sector.