Renesas Electronics recorded its first net loss in six years in fiscal 2025, reflecting weak demand for automotive semiconductors and a limited contribution from AI-related products. The company is recalibrating its strategy, with India and China positioned as key pillars in its recovery roadmap.

South Korean IoT startup NUCODE is leveraging ultra-low-power communication technology to streamline hardware development and bridge the gap between prototyping and mass production. The company, which has already drawn interest from industry leaders Nordic Semiconductor and Infineon Technologies, is now pivoting toward Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem with a strategic focus on Realtek as its primary partner.

According to The Economic Times, India's Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) inaugurated its largest pre-silicon validation facility in Bengaluru on February 6, 2026. Named PRITVI-ACE (Platform for Reconfigurable Integrated Testing and Validation of IPs – Advanced Chip Evaluation), the facility offers large-scale, near-silicon-speed prototyping and validation of complex semiconductor designs before fabrication. It addresses a critical bottleneck in India's chip design ecosystem.

On February 9, Synopsys' China office circulated an internal memo announcing that Qun Ge, global senior vice president and chairman and president of Synopsys China, will leave the company, a move that has prompted significant discussion within China's technology industry.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reportedly hosted a "fried chicken and beer" meeting in Silicon Valley on February 5, 2026, with SK Group chairman Tony Choi, according to industry sources cited by Yonhap News Agency and The Hankyung. The informal dinner in Santa Clara took place at the restaurant "99 Chicken" and followed a similar high-profile gathering Huang held in Seoul in October 2025 with Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Eui-sun.

Onsemi reported steady fourth-quarter results for 2025, supported by disciplined execution and record free cash flow generation, while management signaled improving stability across key end markets even as near-term recovery expectations remain measured.

RISC-V is gaining commercial traction in automotive and industrial electronics, though its adoption remains constrained by execution risk and uneven ecosystem maturity, according to IT services firm UST.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi secured a decisive victory in the February 8, 2026, lower house election after her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 316 seats, surpassing the two-thirds threshold required to control parliamentary committees and initiate constitutional revisions.

To promote the formal deployment of South Korea's domestic NPU and reduce reliance on Nvidia, LG Consulting & Solutions (CNS), the IT services arm of South Korea's LG Group, has joined forces with local IC design company FuriosaAI. The two will jointly integrate FuriosaAI's second-generation RNGD NPU into LG CNS's enterprise agentic AI platform, targeting the public-sector digital transformation market.

IC design house PixArt held its earnings call on February 6, reporting that its fourth-quarter 2025 performance largely met expectations, with modest revenue growth. Gross margin, however, declined slightly due to a higher proportion of CMOS image sensor (CIS) shipments.

According to ANI and IANS, Qualcomm Technologies has completed the tape-out of its 2-nanometre semiconductor design with significant contributions from its engineering centres in India, underscoring the country's rising importance in the global race toward next-generation chip technologies and aligning with New Delhi's push to strengthen domestic semiconductor design capabilities.

According to The Economic Times, India's Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 will prioritise chip design companies and startups, followed by building a domestic ecosystem for semiconductor equipment and materials, and strengthening the talent pipeline to support end-to-end semiconductor development.

Taiwan's economy expanded 8.63% in 2025, its strongest growth in 15 years, as the island's semiconductor-driven supply chain continued to underpin global demand for AI computing. Minister of Economic Affairs Ming-hsin Kung said on February 5 that despite a high base effect from the previous year, Taiwan is expected to maintain resilience and flexibility into 2026.

India marked a milestone in its semiconductor push as seven chip designs from startups under the design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme were successfully fabricated, including advanced nodes at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). The progress underscores India's aim to develop indigenous chip design and manufacturing capabilities amid global supply constraints.

AMD is positioning itself to address the future needs of artificial intelligence (AI) computing through advances in chip design and system architecture, particularly by integrating photonics technology and modular rack-scale platforms. CTO Mark Papermaster, speaking in a recent interview, highlighted how AMD's evolving engineering strategies will shape AI hardware capabilities and scalability over the next several years.

A record-breaking blizzard driven by extreme weather has battered Japan's northern Aomori Prefecture, dumping snow at more than two and a half times the historical average. The storm has claimed lives, paralyzed local commerce, and raised fresh concerns about the resilience of global technology supply chains.

The traditional wafer foundry model is transforming as leading foundries increasingly incorporate intellectual property (IP) into mature technology nodes to address economic pressures and shifting customer needs. Nearly four decades after TSMC founder Morris Chang separated chip design from wafer manufacturing, foundries are evolving from mere silicon suppliers into broader infrastructure providers offering extended platform support.

India's Union Budget for fiscal year 2026–27, unveiled on February 1, 2026, emphasizes manufacturing, semiconductors, and AI-linked infrastructure as central pillars of economic growth. The measures aim to strengthen supply chains, reduce import dependence, and institutionalize compliance frameworks for both domestic and foreign investors.

OSAT leader ASE Technology Holding is optimistic that its growth momentum will extend through 2026 and beyond, benefiting from the short supply of advanced packaging and testing capacity. COO Tien Wu said order visibility has improved over the past three months, prompting the company to further raise its 2026 advanced packaging and testing revenue target to US$3.2 billion. This would represent a doubling from US$1.6 billion in 2025, and is more than 20% higher than the previous forecast of US$2.6 billion. Of the total, 75% is expected to come from advanced packaging, with the remaining 25% contributed by advanced testing.

The global boom in generative artificial intelligence is driving an insatiable demand for computing power. This is pushing the world's largest cloud service providers to rethink a long-standing dependence on Nvidia's AI GPUs.

Qualcomm and MediaTek struck a similar cautionary tone on the smartphone market outlook during their latest earnings calls, pointing to mounting pressure from memory shortages and rising component costs. Pressure is already being felt across the supply chain, with these factors expected to place substantial strain on smartphone brand customers, particularly Chinese brands.

Google's latest earnings showed not only solid operating momentum but also an unprecedented surge in capital spending, with capex set to more than double from US$91.45 billion in 2025 to US$175-185 billion in 2026, driven largely by accelerated investment in AI servers and large-scale TPU deployment.

AI chip startup Cerebras Systems has secured a US$1 billion funding round, boosting its valuation to US$23 billion. According to Reuters and Bloomberg, the latest financing was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Benchmark, Fidelity Management & Research, Coatue, and 1789 Capital—the venture fund of Donald Trump Jr.

Arm Holdings executives highlighted a growing focus on integrated compute subsystems during the company's latest earnings call, as rising chip design complexity reshapes customer requirements across multiple end markets.