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Friday 20 March 2026

Lumotive makes optical breakthrough, targets 10,000-port data centers

As Nvidia and Coherent signal a shift toward all-optical networking to solve the AI power crisis, Redmond-based Lumotive has announced a milestone that could redefine data center scalability. In an interview with DIGITIMES Asia, Gleb Akselrod, Co-founder and CTO of Lumotive, detailed the success of the world's first programmable 2D optical beamforming chip.

Friday 20 March 2026

Nvidia and AWS strike massive GPU supply deal through 2027

On March 19, senior executives at Nvidia said the company has reached an agreement with the cloud computing division of Amazon to supply large-scale GPU infrastructure through 2027.

Friday 20 March 2026

Commentary: Nvidia sees Groq as its next Mellanox

Since the start of 2026, Jensen Huang has twice drawn a striking parallel: likening a potential deal involving Groq to Nvidia's 2020 acquisition of Mellanox Technologies. He first made the comparison during a late-February earnings call, and again in an interview following his keynote at GTC 2026 in March.

Friday 20 March 2026

As NAND makers move on, MLC memory nears the end of the line

As global NAND flash makers shift toward higher-layer 3D architectures, legacy MLC NAND is slipping into a severe supply-demand imbalance and edging toward obsolescence.

Friday 20 March 2026

UK-Taiwan R&D ties scale up with Foxconn, Turing Space, NSYSU

Taiwan has long leveraged its manufacturing strengths to carve out a place in the global supply chain. Now, it is going further. With research and development reach expanding overseas, the country is shifting from contract manufacturing to joint innovation. The UK-Taiwan Innovative Industries Programme (I2P), run under the British Office Taipei and ITRI, has hit a record scale in 2026, with 17 research and development teams taking part in bilateral exchanges.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Nvidia hosts Taiwan night at GTC 2026, Huang vows to defend Taiwan

Nvidia's GTC 2026 is well underway, with the event reaching a record scale as among the major annual events in the AI landscape. Despite a packed schedule, CEO Jensen Huang attended the conference's "Taiwan Night" on March 18 (local time) to engage with Taiwanese partners and express his appreciation for their work.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Nvidia positions Groq 3 LPUs alongside Vera Rubin for an inference-first era

The 2026 Nvidia GTC keynote signaled a clear industry shift toward inference. CEO Jensen Huang declared that "training is just the beginning — inference is the core battleground for AI commercialization." Attendees expected AI agents to dominate the event's agenda.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Groq anchors Nvidia's inference strategy; CPU redefines architecture for AI agents

As AI evolves from generating information to executing tasks, inference scenarios characterized by coding agents and requiring low latency and high throughput are ushering in the next phase of AI infrastructure commercialization. However, even powerful systems like Vera Rubin face challenges when confronted with extreme generation demands. While Nvidia remains the undisputed leader in throughput, traditional GPU architectures appear too heavy for ultra-low-latency token generation. This is why Jensen Huang moved quickly to secure IP licensing and talent from Groq ahead of Christmas 2025.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Chip price surge in 2Q26 shifts cost pressure to end markets

As more European and American chipmakers and IDM giants publicly announce price hikes effective April 1 of this year, mature process foundries in Taiwan and China have also nearly finalized plans to raise prices. The semiconductor industry is clearly entering a broad wave of chip price increases that will likely push costs onto end markets.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Samsung, AMD expand AI memory and compute partnership with MOU to align HBM4 supply and DDR5 support

Samsung Electronics announced it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AMD to expand its strategic collaboration on next-generation AI memory and computing technologies.

Thursday 19 March 2026

AMD deepens ties with Naver in bid to expand AI infrastructure

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is set to deepen its collaboration with Naver Corporation after CEO Lisa Su visits South Korea, with the companies signing an MOU to jointly develop GPU and infrastructure technologies for large-scale AI models.

Thursday 19 March 2026

Nvidia adopts Groq to tackle AI inference and expand global reach

At its annual GTC conference in San Jose, Nvidia unveiled a major shift in its AI hardware strategy: integrating technology from AI chip startup Groq to address growing demand in AI inference, while simultaneously preparing new products for global markets, including China.

Thursday 19 March 2026

How Hwaseong became South Korea's semiconductor supply-chain capital

The global race to onshore semiconductor production has a new focal point: Hwaseong. Nestled in South Korea's Gyeonggi-do province, the city is quietly emerging as the spine of the country's domestic chip supply chain — and a testbed for AI-driven manufacturing.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Nvidia partners with chipmakers to advance industrial robotics

At Nvidia's GTC 2026 conference, major chipmakers — including Texas Instruments (TI), Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors, Analog Devices (ADI), and Synopsys — announced new collaborations centered on robotics built around Nvidia's platform. Robotics is now the defining focus for IDM firms and the broader industrial control chip ecosystem.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Nvidia reportedly preparing Groq AI chips for the Chinese market

Nvidia is preparing Groq AI chips for sale in the Chinese market, according to Reuters. The move signals the company's intent to remain competitive in the global inference chip market, particularly as Chinese chip firms move to fill the void left by US chips following export restrictions.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

The signature on the wafer: Samsung, Nvidia, and Groq close loop on AI inference

The most telling moment of Nvidia's GTC 2026 did not unfold on the main stage of the SAP Center, but inside a glass display case at Booth 1207.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Russia reportedly turns to Loongson to escape x86 sanctions

Amid sustained Western sanctions, Russia is reportedly advancing an alternative CPU pathway through cooperation between local IC firm Tramplin Electronics and China's Loongson. The company is said to be developing its Irtysh processor series based on the LoongArch instruction set, with initial engineering samples released and a production target of 30,000 units.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Nvidia secures approvals and orders for H200 in China, restarts supply chain production

During the GTC 2026 conference, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told global media that the company has made new progress in the China market.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Apple adopts MediaTek Wi-Fi chip for MacBook Neo to save costs, say sources

Apple's recently launched affordable MacBook Neo has been found to use MediaTek's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips instead of Broadcom or Apple's own N1 chip, according to teardown reports. Industry insiders assess that Apple likely made this decision to reduce costs while buying time to improve its in-house N-series chip specifications.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Analysis: Is Nvidia's Groq deal the endgame for AI chip startups?

At its 2026 GTC conference, Nvidia not only unveiled its Vera CPU but also officially launched the Groq 3 LPU chip, developed through a prior technology licensing arrangement with Groq and brought into its own ecosystem. Alongside it, Nvidia introduced the Groq 3 LPX platform — a server rack composed of 128 Groq 3 LPUs that can be directly integrated with the Vera Rubin solution. The move signals that Nvidia has successfully absorbed Groq's technology into its fold. For AI chip startups, the most viable path forward may ultimately be: "if you can't beat them, join them."

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Dreame rollout plan for five chips: chips for robots today, AI data centers in orbit tomorrow

At an industry forum in Shanghai this month, a young Chinese semiconductor startup laid out a sweeping vision: designing chips not only for smartphones and self-driving cars, but also for robots, personal AI supercomputers — and eventually, computing centers in orbit.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

AI boom lifts Changs Ascending as data centers seek reliable power

As AI and advanced semiconductor manufacturing drive unprecedented demand for computing power, the reliability of the electricity supply has become a critical concern for both data centers and chip fabrication plants.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Meta accelerates AI ASIC roll-out as Broadcom secures four-generation chip design deal

Meta recently announced plans to launch four generations of ASIC product lines over the next two years, including the already mass-produced MTIA 300 and upcoming MTIA 400, 450, and 500 chips. These ASICs will primarily target AI inference workloads, while AI training tasks will continue relying on Nvidia solutions.

Wednesday 18 March 2026

Taiwan on track to outpace China's growth again in 2026

Driven by US President Donald Trump's push for American reindustrialization and efforts to shift industries away from China through high tariffs, Taiwan's economy is set to outpace China's growth for the second consecutive year in 2026.

Tuesday 17 March 2026

Hon Precision raises AI chip test capacity plan by 40% amid surging demand

Driven by rapid growth in AI and high-performance computing (HPC) markets, semiconductor IC test equipment leader Hon Precision has upgraded its production expansion plan for 2026 from an annual increase of 30% to over 40%. The company also revealed that AI chip-related orders have far exceeded current capacity, signaling a new wave of global demand for AI chip testing.

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