South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and a delegation of the country's most powerful business leaders convened with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang in Silicon Valley this week, in a series of meetings and public appearances that cast Korea as a cornerstone of the global AI infrastructure push.
Trumpf said preliminary fiscal 2025/26 results showed its business stabilizing after several years of declines in orders and revenue. The German laser and smart manufacturing equipment maker reported slightly higher revenue and stronger-than-expected orders, suggesting demand may be recovering across its key markets and business lines.
Qualcomm is expanding the reach of its Snapdragon platform across Samsung Electronics' Galaxy ecosystem, with Samsung's latest foldable smartphones, smartwatches and next-generation smart glasses all powered by Snapdragon processors. The move highlights the two companies' growing focus on on-device AI and seamless cross-device experiences.
Defense-tech firm Harmattan AI has picked automotive supplier Valeo to develop and build an electric drone motor in France, a modest first contract that signals two larger shifts: Europe's carmakers are repurposing electrification know-how for defense, and the region is racing to wall off drone supply chains from foreign chokepoints, rare earths above all.
Huaqin Technology, the world's largest consumer-electronics original design manufacturer, has again increased its stake in Chinese foundry Nexchip Semiconductor, underscoring how contract manufacturers increasingly view direct ownership of chip capacity as central to supply-chain security rather than a purely financial bet.
As global companies rush to tap the robotics boom, Taiwan's manufacturers are focusing on a blue ocean strategy centered on components, non-humanoid designs, and non-consumer products. A recent partnership between Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and domestic companies has produced a local robot dog platform with a much higher self-sufficiency rate, signaling that Taiwanese firms can help build a non-China supply chain.
The pace of NAND Flash price increases has moderated in the second half of 2026, prompting speculation that the memory market may be approaching a turning point. Supply-chain sources, however, say the market is entering a high-price plateau rather than a downturn, with tight supply expected to persist even as higher procurement costs dampen spot-market activity.
China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) on the 23rd released the 15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development, setting out renewable energy targets for 2030 and, for the first time, requiring new data centers to be planned together with renewable power projects to raise the share of green electricity use.
As OpenAI extends its foundation model outward to capture every entry point, Anthropic has chosen almost the opposite path. Rather than emulate Google or Apple, Anthropic is concentrating its resources on the capabilities that only a native AI company can build, with compute still its most pressing constraint.
Hisense outlined a broader AI strategy at its global partner conference in New York, saying it will expand beyond home appliances into semiconductors, smart energy, laser displays, and automotive electronics. The Chinese consumer electronics maker said the plan is designed to widen its AI value chain, strengthen global brand management, and improve user experience and operations.
South Korean President Jae Myung Lee, senior government officials, business executives, and researchers gathered in San Francisco this week for an AI summit with Nvidia and industry partners, highlighting South Korea's efforts to strengthen its artificial intelligence ecosystem and expand international collaboration.
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