A string of AI server smuggling prosecutions is showing that following US export-control rules to the letter has not stopped advanced Nvidia hardware from reaching China. The weak point lies less in the chips themselves than in the multi-layered server supply chain that carries them, where each participant checks its own slice, and no one owns the final destination.

India is joining the top tier of Asia Pacific data center markets with a stock of facilities designed for a fraction of the power AI hardware draws. That gap is turning the country's build-out into a race for liquid cooling, power equipment, and high-density designs, not just floor space.

The global race to build data centers for artificial intelligence is entering a more difficult phase. Demand for computing capacity remains strong, but new projects increasingly face limits on land, electricity, water, and local acceptance, turning infrastructure expansion into a broader political and social contest.

The traditional market divide between the third-generation semiconductors gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) is seeing greater overlap in 2026, with SiC increasingly encroaching on GaN's territory.

Marvell Technology is betting that the next phase of AI infrastructure growth will require substantially more networking and optical connectivity, raising its fiscal 2028 revenue outlook to approximately US$20 billion and setting a fiscal 2031 target of US$70 billion to US$90 billion. The company's strategy centers on extending existing hyperscaler relationships across switches, optics, and custom chips surrounding AI processors.

The AI server supply chain is poised for a stronger quarter as Nvidia's Vera Rubin and AWS's Trainium 3 gradually ramp up, with momentum expected to strengthen across the supply chain from ODMs to component suppliers.

Transcend reported a sharp recovery in September 2026 revenue as shipments for industrial PC and networking customer projects picked up. The memory module maker said monthly consolidated revenue reached NT$6.04 billion (approx. US$190 million), up 24.8% from August and 290% from a year earlier.

Cerebras' stock rebounded by 9% after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave reassurance that the two companies are close partners days after a report cast doubt on their relationship, causing the chipmaker's stock to drop 20% last week. The episode raises concerns over its current concentration on a few large customers.

LG Electronics has signed a long-term agreement to supply chillers for data center projects totaling more than 5GW of capacity in the US and Canada, giving the South Korean company greater visibility into future demand as it expands its North American cooling business.

As AI advances rapidly, the robotics industry is evolving from traditional automation equipment into a productivity tool for every industry, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said. ITRI added that robots will gradually move into manufacturing, inspection, welding, warehousing, medical care, and even homes, and that hardware, AI, sensing, and virtual-physical integration will be key to turning robots from simply machines that can move into ones that can work.

Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has launched two research programs targeting silicon photonics (SiPh) and next-generation AI data center power systems, seeking to address energy and performance bottlenecks as high-speed computing shifts increasingly from copper to optical interconnects.

Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has recently issued a call for proposals on "high-performance power conversion and system management technologies for next-generation AI data centers." The aim is to help AI-related industries discover and develop usable technologies that can reduce AI's impact on the power grid. The effort targets power consumption, the single biggest customer-side issue facing companies in AI chip design and manufacturing and AI server assembly.

Jedec released a new standard for silicon photonics (SiPh) testing and manufacturing controls to promote consistent reliability practices. The standard comes as SiPh experiences rapid growth due to its potential to replace copper interconnects amid AI infrastructure demand surges.

AM Intelligence (AMI) is widening its AI infrastructure push in India and Malaysia, adding to a regional buildout that could matter well beyond Asia. The latest orders expand access to frontier computing for cloud providers and developers, while signaling a shift in global AI capacity toward new hubs outside North America.

Notebook shipments performed better than expected in the first half of 2026, but the market entered a sharp downturn beginning in September, in stark contrast to previous years, when the month typically marked the start of the peak season.

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has announced the details of its next five-year quantum research program as Taiwan prepares to wrap up its current NT$8 billion (US$252.14 million) National Quantum Team project by the end of 2026.

Da Yi Cheng Technology (DYC) has rapidly expanded in recent years, benefiting from the global semiconductor capacity expansion wave, which has driven demand for second-phase electrical and mechanical installation work. The company is now applying its experience in the US, Japan, Germany, and Singapore.

AI data center plans and computing demand are expanding far faster than physical infrastructure can be built, creating a widening gap between planned and actually deployed compute. A review tracking construction progress and satellite imagery shows that while US data center construction continues to accelerate, bottlenecks in chip supply, advanced packaging, power, transformers and permitting could become key constraints on AI compute deployment.

NTT Data expects India to contribute a larger share of its global artificial intelligence (AI) business than it does of its overall IT services business, as the Japanese company pushes ahead with a three-year investment program in the country focused on data centers.

Despite intense technology competition between the US and China, cooperation between the two sides on the open-standard RISC-V architecture continues to deepen, with US intellectual property provider MIPS expanding its work with Chinese industry.

Schneider Electric has agreed to purchase software company PTC in a deal valuing its equity at around US$22.6 billion. The all-cash acquisition marks the French energy and tech company's latest move to expand into the software and AI market.

Magnetic components maker LinkCom Manufacturing posted September consolidated revenue of NT$44.18 million (approx. US$1.39 million), up 32.53% from a month earlier and down 10.24% from a year earlier. Cumulative consolidated revenue for the first three quarters reached NT$411 million, a 10.21% decline from the same period in 2025.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries plans to launch an AI-powered fully autonomous humanoid robot as early as 2030, using a physical AI platform under development by Japan's Noetra. Nikkei reported that Noetra is backed by 44 Japanese companies, including SoftBank and Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Samsung Electronics has set up a Quantum Design Lab in the Boston area of Massachusetts and started hiring for it, marking a new phase in the company's push into quantum computing. The effort places the South Korean tech giant closer to US research hubs and signals a broader attempt to connect semiconductor expertise with quantum development.

Pegatron's AI server business is ramping up in 2026, with co-CEO Kuang-Chih Cheng recently saying new orders from a US client have begun shipping and are expected to lift September revenue. He added that the company still sees AI server revenue growing by triple digits next year, with the business potentially accounting for 10% of sales.