Amazon Web Services (AWS) saw its revenue grow 39.3% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2026. That was the cloud unit's fastest pace in nearly five years and its sixth straight quarter of acceleration. Segment sales reached US$46.0 billion, which puts AWS at a US$184 billion annualized run rate. Operating income rose 55% to US$17.8 billion.
AI chipmakers' rising memory performance requirements are accelerating the shift from sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) to HBM4E, according to analysis of the South Korean supply chain. Major AI semiconductor customers are already pushing HBM4E development, potentially shortening HBM4's mass-production cycle, while suppliers' development and manufacturing capabilities, thermal management, and customer validation remain decisive.
Strong demand for AI applications and cloud services is driving investment in high-performance computing chips and AI servers, prompting Taiwan manufacturers to expand capacity and borrow from banks while retaining cash. At the same time, banks' property-related loan balances continue to decline as credit resources flow into production and the real economy.
Semiconductor epitaxy maker Episil-Precision said a localized fire broke out on October 28 at its plant on Innovation First Road in Hsinchu Science Park, but caused no injuries or trapped personnel. The affected facility is one of the company's five production sites and accounts for less than 10% of its total output value and production capacity.
STMicroelectronics (ST) reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of US$3.76 billion, above the midpoint of its guidance, as AI data center and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite demand lifted communication equipment and computer peripheral sales by 64% year-over-year. Gross margin reached 37.3%, up 410 basis points from a year earlier, and non-US GAAP earnings per share came in at US$0.37. Free cash flow was US$351 million.
Anthropic's "multi-platform resource pool" strategy, disclosed in its S-1 filing, is sending an important signal to the AI chip industry. The company uses Amazon Trainium, Google tensor processing units (TPUs), Nvidia GPUs, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) GPUs, integrating computing capacity from different partners into a unified resource pool through software and allocating it across chip platforms based on task requirements.
Taiwan's semiconductor rise was built on a powerful division of labor: world-class IC design feeding increasingly advanced foundries, supported by packaging, testing, and an unusually dense electronics manufacturing base.
Intel's server expansion is drawing equipment and materials suppliers into a capacity push, but the benefits will arrive in stages. Management's October 29 earnings-call comments identified three distinct constraints: wafer production, packaging substrates, and lost output from its disrupted Israel factory. Resolving them and bringing additional manufacturing capacity online will take time.
Eternal Materials posted earnings before taxes (EBT) of NT$388 million (approx. US$11.92 million) in September 2026, surging 158.28% year-over-year and up 44.47% from August, as revenue from semiconductor advanced packaging materials and precision equipment both reached record highs for a single month.
Sandisk's latest quarter showed enterprise storage as a stronger growth engine while its consumer business contracted. This divergence is central to interpreting the company's expansion: data center demand is supporting a much larger, more profitable business, but the performance should not be read as a uniform recovery across flash storage markets.
Amazon's third quarter showed its cloud expansion translating into stronger operating profitability, while the cash demands of building AI infrastructure kept rising. The result sharpens the company's central operating challenge: sustaining rapid AWS growth while bringing new capacity into service and maintaining the economics of its much larger retail business.
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