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Jul 6, 10:50
Europe's defense boom has a semiconductor problem
Europe's defense industry is running into a structural bottleneck: the semiconductors needed for modern missiles, drones, radar, communications, and electronic warfare cannot be produced domestically at scale. Even as defense budgets rise across the EU, the industrial base needed to turn spending into capability remains constrained by dependence on foreign microelectronics.
Sharp is moving deeper into satellite communications as it seeks to extend its networking technologies beyond consumer devices and into industrial infrastructure.
The annual Shangri-La Dialogue, considered the most important defense and security conference in the Asia-Pacific region, was held this year in Singapore at the end of May. For this year's conference, however, China kept a low profile by sending a deputy president from its National Defense University, a move seen as its attempt to minimize the significance of the conference.

Japan is preparing to support a Rakuten-led low-Earth orbit satellite communications project, as the country looks to reduce reliance on foreign satellite networks and build a domestic direct-to-mobile connectivity layer for disasters, remote areas, and future digital infrastructure.

The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) Listing Review Committee approved TMY Technology Inc.'s application to list on the Taiwan Innovation Board (TIB) on June 30. The proposed listing remains subject to final approval by the TWSE board of directors.

Taiwan's legislature moved defense drone proposals to committee review on July 3 after heated debate, advancing plans to fund a domestic autonomous unmanned vehicles program and prompting a near-term boost in activity across the local drone supply chain. The Executive Yuan had approved a draft special act backed by a special budget of NT$210 billion (US$6.6 billion) for procurement of autonomous defense unmanned vehicles, and rival bills from the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party were also sent to committee review.
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) announced on June 30 that the wind data product generated by TRITON, Taiwan's first domestically developed weather satellite, has been upgraded to Version 2.1. The update significantly increases the volume of wind observation data and shortens processing time through an expanded ground station network and improvements to the data processing pipeline.

China's private rocket industry is entering a make-or-break decade, as low-Earth orbit satellite demand, reusable launch technology, and STAR Market reforms drive the race to build a "China SpaceX."

Rocket Lab is taking a major step toward competing more directly with SpaceX, announcing an agreement to acquire satellite communications provider Iridium Communications in an approximately US$8 billion cash-and-stock transaction. The deal transforms Rocket Lab from a launch and spacecraft manufacturer into a fully vertically integrated space company with its own global satellite communications network, a strategy widely viewed by the market as mirroring SpaceX's integrated business model.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a request for information (RFI) on June 18 seeking concepts for "low-resource computing" that can operate with almost no electricity, minimal memory, and continued function despite hardware damage. The RFI invited input from academic institutions, companies, and individual inventors and set a July 17 deadline for replies; DARPA said it will follow up with an invitation-only workshop in August in Hanover, New Hampshire, to review promising proposals.
Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of June 22-28, 2026:
The global low-Earth orbit satellite industry is moving from buildout to volume growth, with the pace of launches accelerating and supply-chain demand expanding. Eson Precision Industries, a long-term supplier of mechanical parts for the low-Earth orbit satellite chain, expects its operating structure to improve markedly from the second half of 2026 as orders for low-Earth orbit satellites and AI servers advance in tandem.