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Friday 28 November 2025
Google's TPU strategy mounts fresh challenge to Nvidia's GPU lead

Google's expanding Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) strategy is emerging as a serious challenge to Nvidia's long-running dominance in AI accelerators, particularly after a report from The Information revealed that Meta is in talks to begin using Google TPUs in its data centers in 2027 under a potential multibillion-dollar agreement.

Friday 28 November 2025
Commentary: Taiwan's IC design edge in ASIC development
Taiwan's IC design sector has rapidly expanded in the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) market, driven by growing demand for AI applications. MediaTek has entered Google's TPU supply chain, Alchip Technologies has secured new Amazon Web Services programs, and Global Unichip (GUC) continues to win additional projects. Market chatter indicates GUC has landed the full back-end turnkey order for Tesla's AI5 chip, expected to contribute revenue starting in 2027.
Friday 28 November 2025
Yesterday AOL, today OpenAI: Google's vertical integration threatens to repeat history
In the competitive realm of artificial intelligence computing power, Nvidia currently leads the market, but Google is emerging as a formidable contender with its self-developed TPUs. According to CNBC, Google has collaborated extensively with Broadcom since 2016 to design and manufacture its AI chips. This partnership has progressed into the seventh generation of TPUs, which power Google's internal AI infrastructure and rival Nvidia's GPUs in AI workloads.
Friday 28 November 2025
China's new TPU contender aims for Nvidia's AI chip dominance
China's AI chip startup Zhonghao Xinying has introduced its own tensor processing unit (TPU), a major step in the country's "de-Americanisation" drive as US export curbs continue to block access to Nvidia's high-end GPUs.
Friday 28 November 2025
FitTech targets 2Q26 profits with goal to become Taiwan's largest foundry
FitTech has had weak performance since 2023. It posted a net loss attributable to the parent of NT$290 million (approx. US$9.2 million) for the first three quarters of 2025, although a sharp improvement from 2024. The company has started in LED testing and is optimistic about its DFB and FEL foundry testing business in optical communications for 2026. Strong customer demand has clarified order visibility, and 2026 is expected to see multiple-fold growth. With new product layouts entering the harvesting stage, FitTech aims to turn profitable as early as the second quarter.
Friday 28 November 2025
Taiwan boosts funding for system-level IC designs, focuses on drone sensors and secure chips
Taiwan's Industrial Development Administration said it has approved 28 projects under its 2025 IC design subsidy program, selecting 33 companies for a combined NT$1.3 billion in government funding. The agency expects the initiative to generate nearly NT$36 billion in commercial opportunities as the island pushes system-level innovation in AI, drones and advanced sensing.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Beijing reportedly bans ByteDance from using Nvidia GPUs in new data centers
Beijing authorities have reportedly imposed strict restrictions on high-end semiconductor imports, prohibiting ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, from deploying Nvidia GPUs in newly built data centers. Nationally funded infrastructure projects must now utilize domestically produced AI chips, signaling a significant policy shift towards semiconductor self-reliance.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Commentary: How Huawei’s Kirin 9030 pushes into 7nm threshold
Huawei has launched the Mate 80 flagship series, with the Kirin 9030 once again capturing domestic and international attention. As the United States continues restricting China’s access to sub-14nm tools, industry debate now centres on how the Kirin 9030 reaches “near-7nm” performance and what this means for China’s broader push toward semiconductor self-reliance.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Intel backs Wei-Jen Lo—raising awkward questions for TSMC, Washington, and the chip world
Intel's controversial hiring of former TSMC senior vice president Wei-Jen Lo has escalated into one of the semiconductor industry's most sensitive personnel disputes in years. The situation has become tangled in legal uncertainty, national security implications, and geopolitical imbalances in technology cooperation.
Thursday 27 November 2025
Google pushes TPU-OCS architecture as Gemini 3 aims at ChatGPT

Google's release of its Gemini 3 large language model (LLM) in November—trained primarily on the company's in-house TPU chips and performing at or above the level of OpenAI's ChatGPT—has become a catalyst for a broader strategic push. According to overseas reports, Google is now using its newest advances in AI models to pitch major clients, including Meta, on deploying TPU-based systems inside Google-operated data centers.

Thursday 27 November 2025
Taiwan advances in global quantum race with photon pair and entanglement chip breakthroughs
Taiwan's national quantum program is entering the final year of its first phase, with Academia Sinica and other research groups achieving significant breakthroughs. These include optical Schrödinger cat state generators using heralded photon pairs and high-integration polarization-entangled Bell-state quantum light source chips.
Thursday 27 November 2025
MediaTek research earns global recognition as CEO prepares plenary talk for ISSCC 2026
MediaTek announced that numerous company research papers have been accepted at leading global academic conferences in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and communications in 2025. This includes two papers from MediaTek's Taiwan headquarters research and development team, which were selected for the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026, often called the "Olympics of IC design." With these additions, the company has now had more than 100 papers accepted over 23 consecutive years.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
US pulling far ahead in advanced chips as Europe shifts to supply-chain defense, says McKinsey
A new McKinsey report says the global semiconductor landscape is undergoing a dramatic divergence, with the US emerging as the center of leading-edge computation while Europe pivots toward securing industrial supply chains. As 2025 nears its end, the firm notes that a clear pattern has formed in the wave of greenfield Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): the US is consolidating the future of advanced logic production, and Europe is focusing on technological security and manufacturing continuity.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Taiwan boosts 2026 budget for 5 trusted industries, semiconductors and AI in spotlight
National Development Council (NDC) minister Chun-Hsien Yeh has pointed out that shifting global geopolitical risks are disrupting supply chains. To adapt, Taiwan aims to seize the AI trend by advancing its "five trusted industries" that are closely linked with AI development. The government's strategy includes promoting 10 major AI infrastructure projects to generate over NT$15 trillion (US$462 billion) in output value, driving nationwide industrial upgrades through AI commercialization and integration toward becoming a smart nation.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
China submits 96 papers to top chip design conference, nearly double US and South Korea
The International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) will take place from February 15 to 19, 2026, in San Francisco, US, with MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai delivering the opening keynote on semiconductor innovation amid the AI era. The conference highlights a surge in submissions and shifting geographic leadership in integrated circuit (IC) design research.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Nvidia defends GPU lead as Google TPU gains traction in AI chip market
Nvidia has asserted that its graphics processing unit (GPU) platform remains a full generation ahead of its competitors, responding to increased attention on Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip sector. The company emphasized that GPUs provide greater versatility and performance than specialized ASIC chips like the TPU.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
0.18-micron tech makes a comeback in IC design research
While TSMC is actively building and expanding 2nm fabs and MediaTek's chips are advancing to the 3nm process node, the long-overlooked 0.18-micron technology is unexpectedly making a comeback. IC design industry experts state that 0.18 microns and even 28nm are mature processes still widely used in China. More importantly, 0.18 microns offers extensive room for innovation and has become a sweet spot for academic paper publications.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Samsung reverses five-year promotion decline to bolster AI and chip leadership
Samsung Electronics has announced its 2026 senior executive promotions, marking a sharp departure from its five-year pattern of steadily reducing the number of high-level advancements. The company increased its total senior promotions to 161, up from 137 in the previous year, drawing widespread industry attention and signaling a strategic shift toward bolstering leadership in future growth sectors, according to ET News and Chosun Biz.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Nvidia sparks AI data center power architecture revolution; Taiwan's top wire bonding firms poised to benefit
Nvidia will implement 800V infrastructure in its Vera Rubin platform by 2027, with Taiwanese firms leveraging EV expertise for AI servers, potentially boosting revenue in AI power management by 2026.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Exclusive: China's new 3D hybrid-bonded AI chip rivals Nvidia's 4nm class
China has applied disruptive innovation and a fully controllable domestic solution to break through compute bottlenecks, with chip performance now capable of surpassing constraints linked to sub-5nm advanced nodes, according to Wei Shaojun, vice chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association and professor at Tsinghua University.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Google steps up in ASIC war, but brings mixed implications for MediaTek and Broadcom
Google has been on a streak of breakthroughs in AI. Gemini 3 has been outperforming major AI models, while it has also received strong engineering feedback on Antigravity. Its already fast-rising TPU business is now seeing another major development: Google is reportedly in discussions with Meta about potentially deploying TPUs in Meta's data centers. This is fundamentally different from Google providing TPU computing services to Apple or Anthropic in the past.
Wednesday 26 November 2025
Taiwan's semiconductor prowess cements global tech hub status
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger previously pointed to Taiwan's "precarious" position in the global geopolitical balance. This assessment has now reversed, however, as Gelsinger—now a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Playground Global—offered high praise for Taiwan's supply chain and manufacturing prowess. As Taiwan rises in global influence with its tech hub status, experts are urging foreign players to expand collaboration with local companies, rather than worry about geopolitical risks.
Tuesday 25 November 2025
Japan's AIST opens shared GAA pilot line to support 2nm-class process development
Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has opened a new shared pilot line capable of producing gate-all-around transistors, a move aimed at helping domestic companies develop 2nm and next-generation chip technologies. The facility, located at AIST's Advanced Semiconductor Research Center in Tsukuba, gives Japanese firms access to production-grade tools needed to prototype and validate GAA structures.
Tuesday 25 November 2025
Investors pile into Moore Threads as China seeks its own Nvidia alternative
China's "first domestic GPU stock," Moore Threads, is preparing for its STAR Market IPO, drawing strong investor interest as Beijing prioritises homegrown AI compute. The overwhelming subscription and ultra-low allotment rate highlight how closely the market is tracking China's GPU self-sufficiency effort.
Tuesday 25 November 2025
Samsung reportedly begins mass production of Exynos 2600
Samsung Electronics has reportedly launched mass production of its latest mobile application processor, the Exynos 2600, sparking increased activity across South Korea's semiconductor ecosystem. Local test and assembly firms, including Doosan Tesna and Hana Micron, have begun increasing utilization rates in response to the new production phase.