China's outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) companies entered the fourth quarter with rising sales, high utilization, and an industry-wide price upturn. Their third-quarter results also show how much reported profit growth rests on investment gains and lower taxes, and how heavily the sector is now spending to close an advanced packaging gap that AI demand has exposed.

Geopolitical tensions, volatile crude oil prices, and tightening sustainability requirements are reshaping the global chemical industry, creating new challenges and opportunities for Taiwan's specialty chemicals sector. Against this backdrop, the government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) forecasts that Taiwan's specialty chemicals output will reach NT$185.7 billion (US$5.7 billion) in 2026, up 10.9% from 2025, partly driven by higher oil prices pushing up specialty chemical prices.

Samsung Electronics plans to shut down its remaining 8-inch foundry lines by the end of 2030, forcing South Korean chip designers to seek alternative manufacturing capacity as competing foundries operate near full capacity, The Elec reported.

China's leading solar manufacturers have reported their third-quarter 2026 financial results, showing signs of improving profitability but continued heavy losses, underscoring the persistence of excess production capacity across the industry.

China's memory chip industry heads into the final quarter of 2026 riding a global supply shortage: its leading DRAM maker booked more than CNY54 billion (US$8.11 billion) in third-quarter profit, and its chip designers are still lifting sales on tight supply. The same third-quarter results also show where risks are accumulating — rapid capacity expansion, swelling inventories, and a US policy debate that could reach the equipment domestic fabs depend on.

Malaysia is attaching tougher conditions to its data center boom, pairing a newly approved renewable energy quota with stricter screening of power and water requests and pressure on operators to supply more of their own electricity.

Micron Technology and China's CXMT have taken sharply different approaches to next-generation DRAM scaling, exposing a divide over the commercial viability of 4F-squared memory-cell architecture. While CXMT is advancing 4F-squared towards commercial production to improve bit density, Micron argues that capacitor-scaling constraints undermine its cost advantages and is prioritising 6F-squared technology and a longer-term transition to 3D DRAM. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, meanwhile, are pursuing alternative development paths, highlighting the industry's competing approaches to extending DRAM density and manufacturing efficiency.

Nvidia will showcase its expanding partnerships with South Korean companies at AI Day Seoul, where Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will present semiconductor development cases using Nvidia AI technologies. LG Electronics and Doosan Robotics will demonstrate robotics technologies, while SK Telecom (SKT), Naver Cloud, and Coupang will discuss the development and operation of AI data centers and infrastructure.

China’s push for technological self-sufficiency will continue expanding its industrial overcapacity and exporting it worldwide, according to Roy Chun Lee, senior deputy executive director of the Center for International Trade Policy at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research. Lee made the remarks at a forum on global supply chain restructuring and Taiwan-US economic and trade cooperation held in Taipei on November 2.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics (Semco) has begun mass production of a miniature, ultra-high-capacitance multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), as increasingly powerful automotive processors drive demand for smaller components capable of maintaining stable power supplies.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly in talks with Japanese motor maker Nidec to jointly develop robot motors as the South Korean company expands its humanoid robotics business and pushes to automate its factories.

Taiwan became Thailand's third-largest trade partner in the first half of 2026 as AI growth and geopolitical shifts accelerate Taiwanese investment in the country, Taiwan Representative to Thailand Peter Lan said. Around 200,000 Taiwanese businesspeople are now based in Thailand, with the pace accelerating under the China+1 trend.

Denso, Japan's largest auto parts maker, reported falling profits for the first half of fiscal 2026 as surging memory and other component costs, driven partly by the AI boom, offset revenue growth. The company said it will pass some costs on to customers when necessary while securing supplies through long-term contracts.

Tokyo Electron (TEL) forecasts nearly 90% annual operating-profit growth as chipmakers accelerate capital spending to meet demand for AI hardware, despite mounting concerns over an AI bubble. The company also announced a JPY150 billion share buyback program.

South Korean energy and engineering companies are positioning themselves for the emerging small modular reactor (SMR) market, with SK Innovation (SKI) seeking to build expertise through US demonstration and early commercial projects before pursuing domestic deployment, while Samsung C&T is focusing on modular construction to shorten project timelines, reduce costs, and accelerate commercialization.