TSMC breaks ground on more advanced packaging fabs in Chiayi
TSMC breaks ground on more advanced packaging fabs in Chiayi

TSMC will build additional advanced packaging fabs in the second phase of the Chiayi Science Park in southern Taiwan, National Science and Technology Council minister Wu Cheng-wen said at a groundbreaking ceremony on Sunday. Packaging is where the AI s…

Samsung pulls its first Yongin chip plant forward to 2029
Samsung pulls its first Yongin chip plant forward to 2029

Samsung Electronics is moving to begin operations at the first chip plant in its Yongin cluster in 2029, one to two years earlier than planned, industry sources told Yonhap. The pull-forward lands inside a national build-out that already carries an $88…

Malaysia’s PM is sending an autonomous AI double out to serve citizens, payment links and all
Malaysia’s PM is sending an autonomous AI double out to serve citizens, payment links and all

Malaysia’s prime minister is trying something new: sending an autonomous copy of himself out to serve the public. Anwar Ibrahim is preparing to launch an artificial intelligence version of himself. The avatar is called PMX AI, a nod to his place as Mal…

Nanya plans a $6bn spending surge in 2027 to ride the AI memory boom
Nanya plans a $6bn spending surge in 2027 to ride the AI memory boom

Nanya Technology spent years as the also-ran of the memory business, the Taiwanese DRAM maker that Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron never had to worry about much. The AI boom has changed the arithmetic. The company now plans to spend around $6bn in 2027 as…

SoftBank and PayPay said to be in talks to invest in Seven & i
SoftBank and PayPay said to be in talks to invest in Seven & i

Japan’s biggest payments app and its most famous convenience-store chain may be about to get closer. SoftBank and its payments arm PayPay are in talks to invest in Seven & i Holdings, the retailer behind 7-Eleven, according to Bloomberg, which repo…

Alipay’s owner just open-sourced an entire robot brain in a single week
Alipay’s owner just open-sourced an entire robot brain in a single week

The company behind China’s Alipay just gave away an AI that builds a playable video game world and keeps it running for a full hour. Robbyant, the robotics arm of fintech giant Ant Group, open-sourced its LingBot-World 2.0 world model this week. It gen…

Robots swept RoboCup 2026, and they’re coming for the human World Cup by 2050
Robots swept RoboCup 2026, and they’re coming for the human World Cup by 2050

While the world watched the World Cup, robots played their own version in Incheon. RoboCup 2026 ran from 30 June to 6 July in Songdo, drawing teams from dozens of countries. When the whistle blew, one name was behind every winner. Teams using robots fr…

Taiwan’s central bank chief urges caution on leverage as AI stock rally runs hot
Taiwan’s central bank chief urges caution on leverage as AI stock rally runs hot

Taiwan’s top central banker has urged investors to steer clear of heavy borrowing to chase the island’s surging stock market, a rally powered by global demand for the AI hardware that Taiwanese firms supply. Yang Chin-long, governor of the Central Bank…

Squeezed on land, Samsung wants to put data centres out to sea
Squeezed on land, Samsung wants to put data centres out to sea

As data centres run into unhappy neighbours and water limits on land, Samsung wants to float them offshore. Samsung Heavy Industries plans to launch its first floating data centre by 2028, Seoul Economic Daily reported. It would be a purpose-built barg…

China and the US are now warning against each other’s AI
China and the US are now warning against each other’s AI

The US-China AI split hardened this week. Beijing branded Anthropic’s Claude Code a security back-door, just as US lawmakers moved against American firms that lean on cheap Chinese models. China has told companies to drop Anthropic’s Claude Code. Its M…