DeepSeek is reportedly working closely with Huawei to influence the design of its future AI chips, a link reportedly closer than typical supplier-customer relationships. The collaboration shows the growing ties between two of China's largest technology firms to sidestep Nvidia.
Kioxia is prioritising proprietary NAND flash technology and customer-specific development over aggressive capacity expansion, seeking to capitalise on rising AI storage demand while reducing exposure to memory market volatility.
AI computing is pushing packaging density to its limits, with accelerator substrates expected to exceed 100x100mm and expand beyond 120x120mm within the next three to five years. As substrate sizes, layer counts, I/O and power requirements rise, the industry's key bottleneck is shifting from design capabilities to manufacturing capacity.
China's electronic design automation (EDA) industry is consolidating, with Shanghai-based S2C and Wuxi-based HyperSilicon merging into a unified digital front-end EDA platform. Backed by Empyrean Technology and other investors, the deal aims to strengthen domestic capabilities in hardware emulation, chip verification, and simulation.
Intel is pitching its foundry as the industry's supplier of light sources for AI data center optics, claiming at the 2026 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit that it is the only high-volume fab that can deliver 12-inch indium phosphide (InP) silicon photonics (SiPh) at scale to the industry.
Amkor Technology is tripling its planned investment in Gwangju to expand advanced packaging capacity for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, bringing a semiconductor project under South Korea's southwestern development strategy into construction.
TPK Holding has completed a pilot production line for glass-substrate through-glass via (TGV) technology at its Zhongli plant and started joint development and validation of early-stage samples with semiconductor packaging companies. Under its stated plan, it targets core technology validation by the end of 2027 and mass production in 2028.
Cumulative shipments of chips incorporating Alibaba DAMO Academy's RISC-V processor intellectual property (IP), branded XuanTie, have surpassed 6 billion, marking a milestone for the open-source architecture as the company expands beyond embedded applications into AI computing, servers, autonomous driving, and robotics.
SK Hynix, South Korea's industry ministry, the state-run Korea Trade Insurance Corp. (K-SURE), and four major commercial banks launched a KRW2 trillion (US$1.5 billion) loan guarantee program for semiconductor materials, parts, and equipment (MPE) suppliers on October 19, 2026. The program is the largest single-sector package under the government's push to strengthen export supply chains, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Sandisk will be the exclusive provider of flash storage for Meta VR Glasses, supplying Meta-certified microSD Express memory cards and USB-C flash drives when the glasses launch in spring 2027, the memory maker announced in a press release issued from Milpitas, California, on October 14, 2026.
Samsung Electronics' 2nm mass-production capability at its Taylor, Texas fab has become critical to its efforts to close the gap with TSMC, as Tesla's AI5 chip delivery schedule and Broadcom's potential 2nm orders hang in the balance. The company's ability to achieve competitive yields and stable output at the US facility will determine whether it can turn major customer orders into a broader foundry comeback.
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