Rising geopolitical tensions and surging demand for AI applications are reshaping the global printed circuit board (PCB) industry. The Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) notes that major economies, including China, Japan, South Korea, and the US, are following distinct development paths as AI-driven supply chain restructuring accelerates

On June 6, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed two executive orders—"Unleashing American Drone Dominance" and "Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty"—mandating that the US drone industry exclude technology, parts, and materials from controlled countries (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea). The orders encourage adopting allied technologies to build an autonomous, resilient domestic ecosystem supporting the low-altitude economy and critical defense needs

A new trend is emerging in the AI infrastructure race. After MediaTek invested in US silicon photonics start-up Ayar Labs, Nvidia followed with US$2 billion investments in optical communications suppliers Lumentum and Coherent, signalling stronger momentum behind optical interconnect technologies for AI data centers

During German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's visit to China, the most closely watched stop was Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics. Footage showed Merz standing with arms crossed, nodding and reacting with visible surprise to a humanoid robot's martial arts demonstration

Broadcom has begun shipping the industry's first 2nm custom compute SoC built on its 3.5D eXtreme Dimension System in Package (XDSiP) platform to Japan's Fujitsu, marking a concrete step from roadmap promise to commercial deployment in the AI infrastructure race

Germany's automotive giants—Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi (collectively known as BBA)—have engaged in aggressive price cuts in China's auto market, sparking fierce competition that has extended from electric vehicles (EVs) to internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. This price war threatens the long-standing asset value preservation moat these German luxury brands have built over 30 years

As data center computing demand expands, high-speed transmission architectures are under pressure to upgrade. Scaling high-performance computing platforms is exposing bandwidth and power consumption as core bottlenecks in data transmission and switching, elevating the role of optical interconnects and silicon photonics (SiPh). With support from AI chip leader Nvidia, the notion of optics gradually replacing copper has moved to the center of industry debate

With Northvolt, Cellforce, and ACC all defunct, Europe's battery ambitions have collided with a brutal market reality: Chinese manufacturers now own nearly 70% of global lithium battery installations, led by CATL's commanding 39.2% share. The numbers make clear this isn't a run of bad luck; it's a structural problem

The memory market is no longer just a component story — it is becoming a fault line running through the entire tech industry. As AI infrastructure buildout accelerates, cloud and data-center operators are consuming DRAM and NAND at a pace that is crowding out smartphone makers, distorting foundry economics, and forcing chipmakers to rethink how they secure supply. The consequences are rippling from factory floors in Asia to boardrooms in Silicon Valley

The Trump administration has staked much of its AI credibility on Stargate — a US$500 billion infrastructure push announced alongside Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son. The project was meant to anchor a new era of American dominance in AI. More than a year on, it has yet to move beyond rhetoric

Qualcomm has begun delivering rack-scale AI hardware and software systems for data centers, built around its AI 100 inference chip. The move signals a renewed push into a market where Nvidia and AMD currently set the standard

Anthropic has released a report accusing DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax of systematically extracting capabilities from its Claude large language model through large-scale distillation. The goal: to accelerate training of their own systems

A recent OpenAI disclosure has reignited debate about the company's AI infrastructure ambitions — but the alarm is largely misplaced. According to CNBC, OpenAI told investors its total compute spending target through 2030 would be approximately US$600 billion. That figure was quickly set against CEO Sam Altman's earlier pledge of US$1.4 trillion in infrastructure investment, leading some to conclude the company is pulling back sharply. It is not

Amid rising offshore wind power development in Taiwan and across Asia, alongside increasing cross-border communication cable installations, Dong Fang Offshore (DFO) is aggressively expanding its fleet. Building on existing European client orders, the Taiwan-based offshore maritime solutions provider decided at the end of 2025 to add new cable-laying vessels, targeting the vast market demand driven by energy transition and AI

Samsung Electronics and Intel have alternated for years as the world's largest semiconductor company. From 2011 to 2023, Samsung and Intel each claimed the top spot four and nine times, respectively. However, following the rise of generative AI, the world's largest semiconductor company in 2024 and 2025 shifted to Nvidia