Jabil Inc., the global manufacturing and supply-chain services company, said on Tuesday that it had made a strategic minority investment in Eagle Harbor Technologies, a Seattle-based developer of advanced power systems for semiconductor manufacturing, and would partner with the company on production.
The year 2026 is set to mark the commercial debut of 2nm mobile SoCs, with Qualcomm, Apple, and MediaTek among the first to release 2nm process chips for smartphones. The market expects Qualcomm to introduce two flagship platforms: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro. Xiaomi's upcoming 18 series is poised to secure the first adoption of these 2nm chips among Chinese smartphone brands. The Xiaomi 18 Pro will lead by featuring the Gen 6 Pro version, while the Xiaomi 18 Ultra may arrive later in the year, signaling that China's Android ecosystem is officially entering the 2nm generation.
Due to memory shortages and price hikes, Chinese smartphone brands are expected to reduce their 2026 inventory by at least 10%, mainly affecting cost-sensitive mid-to-low-end models and related SoCs.
Supply chain sources report that Chromebook shipments have stabilized under Google's support. Despite facing a memory market turmoil, Google has set a full-year shipment target of 19.5 million units for 2026, matching 2025 levels. Intel, Qualcomm, and MediaTek remain optimistic about Chromebook demand and continue launching new platforms to expand their market share.
Vietnam has officially begun construction of its first homegrown semiconductor chip manufacturing facility, marking a significant step in the country's plans to develop a domestic semiconductor ecosystem.
Intel has poached Eric Demers, a veteran GPU architect, known for developing Qualcomm's proprietary Adreno GPU architecture. Demers will become Intel's senior vice president of GPU engineering. This suggests that even though Intel has long been unable to compete with Nvidia and AMD in the GPU market, it still hopes to strengthen its own GPU capabilities.
Thailand's Board of Investment (BOI) recently approved a major investment plan led by Zhen Ding Tech (ZDT), the world's largest printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer, in partnership with local firm Saha Pathana Inter-Holding (SPI). The project involves approximately THB65 billion (US$2.1 billion) to establish advanced PCB production capacity, aiming to position Thailand as a key PCB manufacturing center in Southeast Asia.
Apple is losing the preferential access it held for more than a decade at TSMC as surging demand for AI chips shifts the balance of power toward Nvidia and other high-performance computing customers. The change highlights how AI workloads are reshaping capacity allocation at the world's largest contract chipmaker, reducing Apple's ability to secure priority production at the most advanced nodes.
US export restrictions on advanced semiconductor equipment to China have become the biggest obstacle to China's domestic production of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). It has been reported that Chinese companies have begun investing heavily in equipment localization. For example, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is moving towards mass production of more advanced HBM in 2026, and other related equipment vendors are making all-out efforts to build an HBM equipment ecosystem.
As geopolitical tensions escalate, China's AI industry development is shifting from the application layer to underlying computing power and core chip technologies, with GPU- and AI chip-related companies becoming key focal points for both capital and policy resources. The Hurun Research Institute recently released the Hurun Global Unicorns Index 2025.
US secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick recently announced that memory manufacturers not producing in the US could face tariffs of up to 100%. In addition to naming major South Korean players, foreign media reports said that Taiwanese players Nanya Technology and Winbond could also be among the companies potentially affected.
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