Tesla is upgrading its next-generation humanoid robot, Optimus, with a new focus on lightweight construction. Under Tesla's leadership, the robotics manufacturing sector is experiencing a trend toward slimming down robots by refining materials to reduce overall structure lighter. This translates into longer battery life, greater payload capacity, and enhanced precision.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is making a big U-turn on quantum computing. After years of downplaying the technology's timeline, the tech titan is now pouring money into quantum startups.

CoreWeave, the US AI data center operator, announced a US$6.3 billion deal with investor Nvidia that will guarantee demand for its cloud computing capacity through 2032.

Intel announced on September 16, 2025, that Dr. Wang Rui, chair of Intel China with more than 30 years at the company, will retire this month. The leadership transition has been underway since February 2025, when Wang Zhicong was named vice chairman to prepare for succession.

Fan manufacturer Yen Sun Technology (YS Tech) expects solid operational growth for the full year of 2025. Despite challenges in August, such as European automakers entering their summer shipment offseason and cautious sentiment regarding US tariffs, automotive-related sales within China remained strong. Additionally, the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom continues to drive demand for its high-end networking and IT products.

South Korea's information and communications technology (ICT) exports in August 2025 reached a record high for the period compared to previous years. Due to rising memory semiconductor prices and increased investment in artificial intelligence server infrastructure, semiconductor export values also reached an all-time high.

The increasing demand for big data storage driven by artificial intelligence data centers is expected to intensify a supply shortage of QLC NAND Flash memory, potentially resulting in a significant deficit by 2026. Major US cloud service providers are planning to replace traditional hard disk drives with enterprise-grade solid-state drives on a large scale starting in 2026, which will drive explosive growth in demand for high-capacity QLC SSDs. This transition is anticipated to narrow the price gap between SSDs and HDDs to roughly three times.

Server ODMs are significantly expanding their production capabilities to meet the surging demand in the artificial intelligence (AI) market. Mike Yang, EVP at Quanta, revealed efforts to increase capacity at facilities in the US and Thailand, with a new plant in Mexico set to begin production in early 2026. The scale of orders has grown beyond prior expectations, driving this intensified expansion.

The global artificial intelligence (AI) boom is not only driving demand for AI servers and AI data center hardware construction but also pushing high-voltage direct current (HVDC) to become the future mainstream in power supply due to the AI sector's massive energy consumption. This shift is accelerating investments from power grids, heavy electrical equipment, and power supply manufacturers, while the technical and capital barriers are expected to trigger a new round of market shakeouts.

Benefiting from the global labor shortage, Aurotek Corp. has accelerated its second growth curve through AI-driven intelligent robots, with orders on hand continuing to climb. Expanding demand for advanced processes and smart manufacturing has pushed Aurotek's cumulative revenue for the first eight months of 2025 to rise more than 50%.

Wiwynn chair and chief strategy officer Emily Hong said that the company is collaborating with silicon photonics companies to address the rapid increase in AI computing power. As computing power surges, energy consumption has become a major challenge, with industry players working to tackle this issue through cooling and other technologies. Hong believes that quantum computing could serve as a potential solution to the energy consumption problem.

Panasonic Group's subsidiary, Panasonic Industry, announced plans to construct a new factory in central Thailand with an investment of JPY17 billion (approx. US$115 million). The facility will produce multilayer circuit board materials specifically designed for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, addressing the surging global demand driven by generative AI technologies.

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of September 8–September 14.

Nvidia has reportedly abandoned its initial SOCAMM1 low-power DRAM module for AI workloads, shifting focus to SOCAMM2 with faster speeds and broader supplier collaboration, including Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. This move signals a strategic push to address technical challenges and advance AI memory solutions ahead of mass production in 2026.

Shanghai-based Ant Lingbo Technology, a subsidiary of Ant Group, has introduced its first humanoid robot, the R1, at the Inclusion Conference in Shanghai. The robot demonstrated its ability to guide visitors, sort medicines, and cook meals during the event.

Ever since Academia Sinica announced a 5-qubit superconducting quantum computer in January 2024, and National Tsing Hua University unveiled a photonic quantum computer capable of integer factorization using just one photon in October 2024, Taiwan has seen no major breakthroughs in quantum computing research. in addition, no clear results have been obtained from the quantum computer purchased from the Finnish company IQM, and National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) officials have stated that they will soon conduct an on-site inspection of the IQM Spark in Taiwan.

At the recent Hot Chips 2025 conference, Nvidia detailed its latest GB10 system-on-chip (SoC) architecture, representing a miniaturized application of the Blackwell GPU architecture. Through collaboration with MediaTek, Nvidia integrated 20 Arm v9.2 CPU cores with a high-performance GPU into a single 2.5D package, creating a compact version of the Grace Blackwell platform.

Quantum computing developer Rigetti Computing has projected that the technology will become commercially viable when it is integrated into existing data centers, delivering clear advantages over current CPU and GPU systems. The company expects this milestone to occur within three to five years, signaling a critical phase for quantum computing beyond research and development.

Google's cloud computing service, Google Cloud, has become its most important growth engine. CEO Thomas Kurian recently stated at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference held in San Francisco that the business had generated billions of dollars in revenue through artificial intelligence (AI) services and established diversified business models. Currently, it holds a backlog exceeding US$106 billion, with approximately 55% of these orders expected to convert into revenue within the next two years—about US$58 billion.

As generative AI matures, the traditional division of labor within enterprises is undergoing a profound transformation. At Taiwan Mobile's D.E.E.P. Tech Day 2025 on September 9, 2025, Chief Information Officer Rock Tsai introduced the concept of "reversing specialization," arguing that AI is not merely a productivity upgrade but a force that will redistribute corporate roles, reshape value chains, and accelerate the rise of an "AI agent" ecosystem in external markets.

Oracle is rapidly shaking off its reputation as a laggard in cloud computing, with new AI contracts and a strong outlook pushing its growth plans into overdrive.

Generative AI has moved beyond the "model arms race" into practical deployment, and Taiwan Mobile (TWM) is moving quickly to capitalize on the momentum. Company president Jamie Lin announced that the company will invest NT$930 million (approx. US$30.7 million) in 2025 on R&D to create solutions that support enterprises in AI adoption and deployment.

On September 11, 2025, the Taiwan Quantum Computing and Information Technology Association held a forum at SEMICON Taiwan, where CEOs from top international quantum computing companies attended in person. The event highlighted proprietary quantum computers and underscored the industry's growing maturity and global reach.

At a SEMICON Taiwan forum on Quantum computing, IBM Japan CTO and Vice President Norishige Morimoto detailed how AI's growing complexity—estimated to have surged by more than 100 million times over 15 years due to LLM advancements—has outpaced the evolution of GPU hardware. This mismatch leads to exponentially higher energy usage, with one study forecasting that data center energy needs could rise 90-fold by 2050. To address this, IBM is advancing hybrid computing systems that combine classical semiconductors, neuromorphic chips, and qubits.