The US Department of Commerce (DOC) launched a Section 232 national security investigation on April 1, 2025, targeting semiconductors, manufacturing equipment, and related products. The review remains ongoing more than eight months later, as disagreements are still unsettled regarding which items should face tariffs and at what rates.
Intel has evaluated advanced manufacturing equipment from ACM Research, a US supplier with subsidiaries subject to American trade restrictions, even as Chinese semiconductor toolmakers report surging revenues and technological gains.
As artificial intelligence (AI) transitions from cloud-centric operations to edge devices, the hardware that powers AI is undergoing significant change. While graphics processing units (GPUs) have long dominated both AI training and deployment, neural processing units (NPUs) are now emerging as a viable alternative, particularly for edge applications, according to Jeffrey Chen, vice president of product marketing at Kneron. Chen elaborated on these evolving trends at the recent Human-Machine Co-Creation New Era annual summit.
AI data centers are seeing rapidly increasing demand for HPC and big data processing. The shift from traditional copper wiring to fiber optics boosts data transfer rates while lowering power consumption. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) epitaxy maker Visual Photonics Epitaxy Co. (VPEC) stated that while the smartphone market in 2026 is expected to remain flat or show slight growth, rising transmission efficiency requirements in AI data centers will drive planned equipment purchases and expanded capacity, making data centers the company's main growth driver for 2026.
Explosive AI infrastructure investment is driving a broad upgrade across the PCB value chain, pulling high-end AI server and materials demand sharply higher. PCB layer counts and CCL specifications are rising in tandem, lifting earnings for downstream suppliers. The same momentum is now pushing upstream drilling consumables and equipment into a tight supply, a sign of how quickly AI hardware cycles are compressing.
Huawei is moving to capitalize on a tightening consumer solid-state drive (SSD) market in South Korea, introducing new products this month as established suppliers raise prices and Micron prepares to exit the segment. The shift, driven by surging demand for enterprise products supporting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, is pushing South Korean PC makers to seek alternative suppliers, potentially opening the door for Chinese brands.
Cloud giants' aggressive procurement of high-capacity enterprise SSDs has triggered a structural shortage and price surge in the NAND Flash market. In China, spot prices for 512Gb and larger NAND chips rose more than 100% in fourth quarter 2025, with NAND manufacturers maintaining their stance on further price hikes.
Japanese semiconductor test equipment manufacturer Advantest has announced the launch of a next-generation memory handler, designed specifically for high-performance memory components used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The product has already attracted interest from several major memory makers and is slated to begin shipments in the second quarter of 2026, meeting customer demands for performance, automation, and cost efficiency.
Silicon photonics is emerging as the strongest growth engine within Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing sector.
AI trends have fueled strong demand for data center chips and optical communications, pushing IC distributor WT Microelectronics' cumulative revenue for the first 11 months of 2025 to NT$1.08 trillion (US$34.64 billion), officially surpassing the trillion-dollar mark.
Samsung Electronics is reportedly accelerating construction at its Pyeongtaek semiconductor complex to expand production of next-generation high-bandwidth memory, aiming to secure supply for global cloud providers and AI chipmakers as demand intensifies. The company has reportedly approved plans to convert additional space in its P4 fab into dedicated 1c DRAM lines and has advanced completion dates for key production zones, according to Korean media reports.
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