Explosive AI demand is accelerating a historic global memory chip shortage, with major cloud service providers (CSPs) securing multi-year long-term agreements (LTAs) to guarantee supply through 2027 and 2028. Industry sources reveal that nearly all memory production capacity for 2026 has been pre-booked, confirming an unrelenting shortage throughout the year.

The humanoid robot sector in China is experiencing rapid growth in production capacity, despite unclear large-scale demand, as companies prepare for anticipated commercialization. This comes amid delays in mass production efforts by Tesla Inc. in the US, highlighting differing dynamics between global markets.

As 2025 wraps up, MiTAC Holdings president Billy Ho has stated that it has been a year of changes and challenges. He noted that 2026 will still have obstacles, including geopolitics, national policies, high levels of government debt, and weak global economic growth. Despite these challenges, he expressed confidence that growth in 2026 will not be an issue for MiTAC, with the second half expected to perform better than the first half.

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.

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.

The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) announced the winners of the 34th Taiwan Excellence Awards on November 26, showcasing an overall trend in Taiwan's industries toward high-value sectors such as smart manufacturing and health technology, with communications devices comprising more than half of all winning products.

Driven by a global upgrade in advanced manufacturing, hydraulic components are expanding beyond traditional heavy industries into semiconductor, medical, and precision equipment sectors. At its recent investor conference, Jufan expressed optimism about growth in semiconductors, molds, medical devices, and machine tools, projecting continued operational expansion in 2026.

The United States and China remain locked in a humanoid-robotics competition. Solomon Technology chairman Johnny Chen says the US leads in software and foundation models, while China advances faster in hardware and iteration cycles. He noted that Chinese systems cost about one-fifth of their US counterparts, making the gap difficult for other countries to close.

Johnny Chen, chairman of AI vision software leader Solomon, identified two major technical limitations currently hindering humanoid robot development: restricted visual range and slow learning processes. These challenges create significant practical inconveniences for humanoid robots at this stage.

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.