New figures from Counterpoint Research estimate that the bill of materials (BOM) for the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro Max could rise nearly US$300 compared with the iPhone 17 Pro Max released in September last year. Ballooning memory costs largely account for this increase, although Apple may be better placed than most other smartphone brands to weather such price hikes.

Shipments of smartwatches with edge AI features leaped 70% in the first quarter of 2026, with Apple overwhelmingly leading the charge, according to Counterpoint Research. This market is taking off as health-focused users gain access to deeper insights through AI advancements, and as brands lean on wearables to offset weak smartphone sales.

Huawei has joined more than 20 Chinese technology companies and research bodies to launch OPEN NPO, the country's first multi-source agreement for near-packaged optics, in an effort to standardise high-speed optical interconnects for AI supernodes and large-scale computing clusters.

OpenAI has expanded its push beyond conversational AI with the launch of ChatGPT Work, an agentic workspace that combines ChatGPT with its Codex coding capabilities, underscoring the industry's rapid shift toward AI agents that can complete complex tasks rather than simply answer questions. The announcement positions OpenAI at the center of an increasingly competitive market, where rivals including Anthropic and Cursor are racing to build autonomous workplace assistants.

When the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opens on July 17, its exhibition halls will double as a statement: China now fields a domestic AI stack running from silicon to agentic devices, at a moment when US export controls are tightening around the country's access to the most advanced foreign chips and models.