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Thursday 21 May 2026

Demand surge for power semiconductors reshapes data-center power and cooling, pushing suppliers toward SiC and GaN

Demand for power components is surging as AI servers adopt high-voltage direct current power delivery and advanced cooling technologies. This shift could increase component density and design complexity across the data center supply chain. Taiwanese power semiconductor makers are moving into cooling and power-management MOS technologies, as well as higher-spec upgrades.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Tech Forum 2026: How much longer can semiconductors sustain Taiwan?

During a keynote discussion session at Tech Forum 2026, DIGITIMES senior reporter Monica Chen and semiconductor analyst Andrew Lu shared their views on current AI server technology transformations, concerns over capital expenditure bubbles among global cloud giants, changes in application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and chip architectures, and TSMC's global expansion strategy.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Nvidia introduces ACIE sub-segment, adds Anthropic as partner, and breaks out Physical AI

Nvidia introduced a new segment reporting framework on its first quarter of fiscal 2027 call, splitting data center revenue into Hyperscale and ACIE (AI Clouds, Industrial, Enterprise) and breaking out Edge Computing as a separate platform.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Nvidia prices rivals out of AI factory race with Blackwell, Vera CPU, and Rubin

Nvidia used its first quarter of fiscal year 2027 earnings call on May 20, 2026 to lay out a three-tier silicon cadence that should make any rival roadmap look thin: a Blackwell ramp the company calls the fastest in its history, the first production silicon of Vera Rubin in the second half of this year, and a brand-new Arm CPU, Vera, that opens a US$200 billion TAM Nvidia has never touched.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Nvidia excludes China from its outlook while citing analyst estimates of US$1 trillion in hyperscaler capex by 2027

Nvidia continues to exclude Chinese data center compute revenue from its outlook, with CFO Colette Kress citing uncertainty around whether H200 imports will be allowed into the country despite recent US export license approvals.

Thursday 21 May 2026

FII challenges Broadcom and Nvidia as CPO race shifts to system integration

As AI computing demand continues to grow exponentially, pressure to upgrade data center network architectures is intensifying. Co-packaged optics (CPO) is moving from concept to real-world deployment, and Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII) is quietly building a strong market position by leveraging its existing strengths in CPO all-optical switches as well as AI servers.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Nvidia revenue surges 85% as data center sales jump 92%

May 20, Nvidia reported first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of US$81.6 billion, up 85% year-over-year and 20% sequentially. GAAP diluted EPS reached US$2.39, up 214% year-over-year, and non-GAAP EPS was US$1.87, up 140% year-over-year. Both topped consensus estimates, with revenue near US$79 billion and non-GAAP EPS of US$1.77, S&P Global Market Intelligence reported.

Thursday 21 May 2026

Samsung averts strike with last-minute labor deal, but deeper divisions remain

With less than an hour remaining before a planned strike was set to begin, Samsung Electronics and its labor union reached a tentative agreement late on May 20, narrowly avoiding what industry observers estimated could have triggered supply-chain disruptions worth more than KRW100 trillion (approx. US$66.8 billion).

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Alibaba's T-Head doubles down on AI infrastructure with Zhenwu M890

Alibaba Cloud has unveiled the Zhenwu M890, a new proprietary AI training and inference chip developed by its semiconductor subsidiary T-Head Semiconductor, as the Chinese cloud group accelerates its push into full-stack AI infrastructure for the agentic AI era.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Amazon's AI chip push gains ground as Nvidia remains central to AWS

Amazon's yearslong push to build a credible alternative to Nvidia's AI chips is beginning to gain traction, as software improvements, tight GPU supply, and cost pressure prompt more developers to test the company's Trainium processors, according to The Information.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Former Samsung semiconductor head warns that memory prices and demand could fall sharply after 2028

The global semiconductor industry has been focused on a memory supercycle, with some forecasts suggesting the upturn could last until 2030. However, Kye-hyun Kyung, former head of Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division and currently a standing advisor to Samsung, has cautioned against overly optimistic sentiment in the memory market.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Google and Blackstone could lift ASIC demand with TPU leasing joint venture

Recent media reports say Google is set to team up with Blackstone to form a new cloud computing leasing company, with Blackstone as the main shareholder. The new venture aims to build about 500 MW of computing capacity by 2027, most of it using Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), a move industry watchers say supports Google ASIC partners such as MediaTek, Broadcom, and TSMC.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

South Korea sounds alarm on manufacturing hollow-out as AI server boom lifts Taiwan

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, demand for data centers is rapidly redrawing the export map of nations.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Phison taps overseas bond market for US$800 million storage push

Phison Electronics has completed pricing for its first overseas unsecured convertible bond sale, raising US$800 million as the NAND controller supplier moves to support expanding demand for AI storage and related solutions.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Commentary: Musk, Huang, and H200—Nvidia's last chip in China

US President Donald Trump's trip to China with 17 business leaders thrust Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang back into the spotlight — as Beijing's position on Nvidia's H200 chips and China's broader AI supply chain continue to reshape the market narrative.

Wednesday 20 May 2026

Intel prioritizes high-end CPUs as AI demand tightens global supply

Intel is urging notebook and PC customers to adopt its most advanced chip manufacturing technology as surging demand for artificial intelligence computing continues to strain global CPU supply, according to industry sources.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Foundry, test costs push PMIC price hikes toward 12-inch wafers

Rising manufacturing costs at upstream foundries and back-end packaging and testing are pushing power management IC (PMIC) makers toward price increases, with global implications for device makers and automotive and data-center operators as firms weigh whether to accept higher PMIC prices or shift strategies amid ongoing worldwide capacity constraints and node migration pressures.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

ITE Tech awaits PC, NB visibility as price hikes begin in 2H26

ITE Tech's stable first-quarter results and planned price increases from the second half of 2026 signal potential cost pass-through across global PC, notebook, and embedded markets, affecting device makers and buyers worldwide as memory and component costs climb and inventory strategies shift in response to anticipated further price rises.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

XPeng introduces mass-produced Robotaxi built on in-house AI chips

XPeng unveiled its first mass-produced robotaxi on Tuesday, marking a major milestone in China's rapidly accelerating race to commercialize Level 4 autonomous driving.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Analog Devices reportedly closes in on US$1.5 billion cash bid for Empower Semiconductor

Analog Devices Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire Empower Semiconductor for about US$1.5 billion in cash, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A formal announcement could come as soon as Tuesday. The deal has not been finalized and could still fall through.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

AMD gains Beijing spotlight: China courts Lisa Su for AI chip ties

Shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang left China following a delegation led by US President Donald Trump, Beijing officials swiftly announced a meeting with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su, drawing market attention to a possible shift in the atmosphere surrounding US-China AI chip cooperation.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Chipmakers rejoice as Googlebook entry heats up AI PC race

Google's announcement for the upcoming Googlebook, which tightly integrates Gemini features, signals that it is no longer limiting its PC strategy to the Chromebook line and is pushing into a higher-end product tier in the AI PC era. Chipmakers, including Intel on the x86 side and Qualcomm and MediaTek on the Arm side, are also joining the race, further intensifying competition in the AI PC market.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Satellite communications boom drives Winsemi, AWSC into W band

SpaceX's IPO preparations are accelerating the commercialization of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, renewing global attention on satellite communications. The LEO sector's sharp growth in 2025 and expected expansion in 2026 could reshape connectivity worldwide, as rising demand for inter-satellite, satellite-to-gateway, and satellite-to-mobile links drives higher frequencies and services.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Google and Blackstone reportedly plan AI cloud venture to expand TPU business

Alphabet's Google and Blackstone are planning to launch a new artificial intelligence cloud company that would use Google's proprietary AI chips to compete in the fast-growing AI infrastructure market, according to reports from Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.

Tuesday 19 May 2026

Arm faces US antitrust probe after announcing plan to design its own chips

Arm was notified by the US Federal Trade Commission in early 2026 that it was the subject of an antitrust investigation after the chip designer said it would begin engineering its own processors, according to Bloomberg. The FTC is examining whether Arm used its dominant position in chip licensing to deny or downgrade the quality of CPU blueprints it licenses to others in order to disadvantage rivals. The regulator asked Arm to cooperate and preserve related documents.

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