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Oct 23
TSMC reportedly surveys suppliers on rare-earth-free motors as China's export-control pause nears legal expiry
The world's largest contract chipmaker is weighing whether the motors inside its factory-automation equipment can run without rare-earth magnets, a sign that China's grip on rare earths now reaches the machinery that keeps fabs running, just as a key Chinese export-control pause approaches its legal expiry date.
Anthropic's IPO filing reveals an infrastructure strategy extending far beyond conventional cloud procurement, as the Claude developer locks in hundreds of billions of dollars of compute capacity across Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Broadcom, and a growing roster of GPU infrastructure providers.
South Korean memory chip designer Jeju Semiconductor is struggling to secure enough wafer capacity from Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC), limiting its sales growth as strong memory demand drives up prices and manufacturing costs.
Broadcom has reached a deal with several financial firms for them to finance the purchase of US$63 billion worth of its chips for Anthropic. The agreement highlights how the line between supplier and lender is becoming blurred among some chipmakers, as well as Wall Street's growing involvement in funding arrangements as AI infrastructure spending continues to expand.
Expanding investment in AI data centers is putting pressure on memory supply and demand across the automotive industry. As semiconductor companies prioritize high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server products, automotive memory faces rising prices and tighter supplies, making automakers' direct procurement, long-term partnerships, and in-house chip design increasingly strategic.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Kazakhstan highlighted plans to build an AI computing hub for Europe, with projects spanning GPU clusters, data centers, talent, and physical AI. The initiative depends on power infrastructure, foreign technology, and Kazakhstan's ambition to develop and export its own AI capabilities across Central Asia.
As military conflict in the Middle East cripples global energy infrastructure, the United States is emerging as the critical anchor for the world's high-tech manufacturing sector. Amid a historic supply crisis for helium, an indispensable element in the production of semiconductors and advanced electronics, as well as in medical imaging, the US Department of Energy has officially designated helium as a critical material under the Energy Act of 2020.
AMD and Nvidia have separately invested in supply-chain capacity expansion, making substrates, packaging, and testing key priorities as AI demand diversifies. The moves show that chipmakers are extending competition beyond performance and architecture design to control over critical manufacturing resources.
Fujifilm Electronic Materials is expanding its advanced semiconductor materials footprint in South Korea by increasing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoresist capacity in Pyeongtaek and expanding chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurry production in Cheonan. The investments will deepen local support for customers including Samsung Electronics as AI and advanced-process demand grows.
Nvidia says GPUs last 8 years, unlocking AI financing
Oct 27, 11:47
After the GTC Berlin conference, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Silicon Valley technology investor Gavin Baker spoke with Yahoo Finance for about half an hour. Huang confirmed Nvidia GPUs can remain in service for up to eight years and said their high residual value could help unlock financing for AI infrastructure.
Applied Materials plans to increase its stake in Dutch semiconductor equipment maker BE Semiconductor Industries (Besi) to approximately 20% from 9%, deepening its involvement in advanced chip packaging as demand for hybrid-bonding equipment accelerates.
Nvidia opened GTC 2026 in Berlin on October 21 with a keynote highlighting AI infrastructure, security architecture, and Physical AI, while a Greenpeace protest briefly interrupted proceedings. A robot demonstration also exposed limits in motion control, instruction comprehension, and execution stability as Europe weighs innovation, energy demand, regulation, and competitiveness.