Small island, enormous influence: home to TSMC, the company that makes the advanced chips inside almost every phone, laptop and AI server on earth. The heart of the global semiconductor supply chain.
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GlobalFoundries Expands SiGe Capacity in Multi-Year Marvell Deal
GlobalFoundries has signed a new multi-year agreement with Marvell Technology to increase production capacity for its silicon germanium technology. Under the deal, GlobalFoundries will expand SiGe production at its Burlington, Vermont facility to support Marvell's growing requirements, with the added capacity aimed at next-generation pluggable optical transceivers, Near-Packaged Optics and Co-packaged Optics. The collaboration is expected to serve rising demand for high-speed optical connectivity driven by artificial intelligence and cloud data center infrastructure. GlobalFoundries' existing solutions support 200G-per-lane optical connectivity, while its development roadmap targets higher-speed generations as bandwidth requirements rise. The company faces competition from United Microelectronics, which has begun mass production of photonic IC wafers, and Taiwan Semiconductor, which is strengthening its CoWoS packaging and silicon photonics capabilities.
UMC Shares Surge 250% as AI Revenue Push and 2026 Estimate Jump Fuel Bull Case
United Microelectronics Corporation shares have soared 250.1% over the past year, far outpacing the industry's 25.8% gain, as improving foundry demand and AI exposure drive optimism. The company's 22/28-nanometer nodes contributed 37% of second-quarter revenues, with 22nm sales hitting another record, and management expects third-quarter wafer shipments to rise by a high single-digit percentage sequentially with capacity utilization exceeding 90%. UMC expects AI-related revenues to approach $300 million in 2026 and exceed $1 billion within three years, and it recently began mass-production delivery of silicon photonics wafers from its 12-inch Singapore facility, with plans to open its own 12-inch silicon photonics platform to broader customers in 2027. Its collaboration with Intel on a 12nm process platform is expected to begin production in Arizona in 2027. The 2026 earnings estimate now stands at $1.23 per share, up 75.7% over the past 60 days, and the stock carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
TSMC Moves 2nm Into Commercial Production, Raises Capital Expenditure Targets
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has moved its 2nm process into commercial production and raised its capital expenditure targets to support the rollout. The chipmaker said the higher spending is preparation for an intensifying global semiconductor arms race among leading foundries and chip designers. The accelerated 2nm commercialization keeps TSMC aligned with chip designers that need leading-edge capacity for AI and high-performance computing, and the bigger budget gives it more room to secure large multi-year supply commitments from major customers. One early indicator to watch is how quickly 2nm and related advanced nodes contribute a rising share of wafer revenue as new lines ramp up, including whether customer wins such as the MediaTek 2nm decision broaden into multiple large-volume programs that keep those advanced fabs near targeted utilization levels from 2026 onward.
TSMC Shares Gain 1.65% as MediaTek Puts 2-Nanometer Chip in Phones
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's 2-nanometer process has reached mainstream smartphones through MediaTek's Dimensity 9600 Pro, and TSMC's U.S.-listed shares rose about 1.6% to $424.595 Thursday on the news. MediaTek is splitting its newest lineup across two generations: the premium Dimensity 9600 Pro uses TSMC's 2-nanometer process, while the broader-market 9600M stays on the established 3-nanometer node. MediaTek says the Pro chip's neural-processing unit improves prompt handling by 51% over the previous generation, and phones powered by both processors are expected to reach the market soon. The transition remains early in revenue terms: 2-nanometer products were only 3% of TSMC's second-quarter wafer revenue, against 30% from 3 nanometers and 33% from 5 nanometers. The shares trade 16.65% above the GF Value estimate of $363.99, and the key question for investors is whether smartphone adoption scales fast enough to lift 2-nanometer utilization while TSMC protects yields and economics at the advanced node.
Delta Integrates Power and Cooling Infrastructure for NVIDIA DSX AI Factories
Delta Electronics announced development work to speed deployment of AI factories built on the NVIDIA DSX AI Factory Platform, integrating power and cooling infrastructure from onsite energy through to the AI rack. The company said it bridges energy availability and compute productivity by connecting onsite energy, facility power, row and rack-level power and cooling, and chip-level solutions, aiming to help customers accelerate token production and generate higher AI yield from every available megawatt. Delta's 800 VDC power architecture reduces conversion stages between facility power and compute and delivers up to 98% power conversion efficiency, while high-density In-Row systems deliver up to 800 kW in a single power rack; at the board level, its 800 VDC DC-DC power distribution technology steps down directly to 50 VDC or 12 VDC with peak efficiency up to 98.5%. On the thermal side, Delta's portfolio spans 2.4 MW and 3 MW liquid-to-liquid cooling distribution units, In-Rack cooling, and thermal solutions for next-generation AI racks. Delta also applies prefabrication and modular design, with its Prefabricated AI Modular Data Center Solution integrating 800 VDC In-Row Power and 3 MW of liquid-cooling capacity into infrastructure blocks assembled and tested in the factory. Austin Tseng, President of Delta Electronics Americas, said power quality, GPU load transients and heat must be engineered together all the way into the rack, while Vladimir Troy, vice president of AI infrastructure at NVIDIA, said Delta's expertise in 800 VDC power delivery and liquid cooling will help customers deploy AI factories based on NVIDIA DSX faster.
M31 Expands Rambus Collaboration for One-Stop MIPI Subsystem Solution
M31 Technology has expanded its technology collaboration with Rambus Inc. to cover MIPI CSI and MIPI DSI Controller technologies, combining them with M31's silicon-proven MIPI PHY portfolio to offer a comprehensive MIPI subsystem solution. The Hsinchu-based silicon IP provider said the integration of high-speed MIPI PHYs with MIPI CSI and DSI controllers lets customers reduce verification and development risks tied to multi-vendor integration while accelerating time-to-market. M31 CEO Scott Chang said customers previously had to procure controllers separately and then rely on M31 for integration, but can now entrust the complete MIPI interface design to M31. As M31 moves from PHY-only offerings to complete subsystem solutions that include controllers, the average total contract value of related engagements is expected to increase compared with the previous PHY-only licensing model. The company cited rising demand across smartphones, automotive ADAS cameras, multi-display cockpit systems, and AI edge devices, and said industry analysts project the global interface IP market will reach approximately US$5.4 billion by 2029.
TSMC Q2 Revenue Jumps 36% as CoWoS Packaging Bottleneck Drives Pricing Power
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported second-quarter 2026 EPS of $4.31 against a $3.8866 estimate, a 10.89% beat, on revenue of $40.2 billion, up 36.0% year over year, with gross margin of 67.7%, up 9.1 percentage points year over year. Advanced nodes at 7nm and below accounted for 77% of wafer revenue, with 3nm at 30%, 5nm at 33%, and 2nm debuting at 3% in its first commercial quarter. August monthly revenue rose 53.3% year over year, and management raised full-year 2026 growth guidance to slightly above 40% year over year in U.S. dollar terms. Management said packaging capacity is so tight that it is now a little bit of customers' growth, pointing to the CoWoS advanced packaging step as the industry's real choke point. The company guided that the steep 2nm ramp will dilute third-quarter gross margin by about 3 to 4 percentage points, while citing an additional $100 billion U.S. investment and a total Arizona commitment of $265 billion, $110 billion in cash and marketable securities, a 2024 to 2029 revenue CAGR approaching 25% in USD, and a long-term gross margin above 56%.
Apple Launches First Foldable iPhone Duo Under New CEO John Ternus
Apple unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, on September 9, starting at $1,999 with preorders opening October 16 and availability beginning October 23. The device pairs a 5.4-inch outer display with a 7.6-inch folding inner screen and runs on the A20 Pro chip manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor. The launch comes as Apple enters a new era under CEO John Ternus, who took the helm on September 1 as longtime leader Tim Cook stepped down after 15 years as CEO to become executive chairman. Apple's fiscal third-quarter revenue increased 16% year over year to $109.4 billion, with iPhone, Mac, and Services each delivering double-digit growth. Siri AI began rolling out in English-language beta on September 14, underpinned by a multiyear collaboration with Alphabet's Google Gemini technology and a separate OpenAI partnership integrating ChatGPT into Siri and Writing Tools. Apple stock trades around $330 a share, roughly 4% below its 52-week and all-time high, at 38X fiscal 2026 consensus earnings estimates of $8.85 per share and 35X FY27 EPS estimates of $9.53, and currently holds a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Meta to Deploy Custom AI Chips in Data Centers by 2027
Meta Platforms is moving deeper into custom AI silicon, with a new generation of internally designed chips set to enter its data centers in the first half of 2027. The company is currently testing its third-generation MTIA 450 processor, code-named Arke, while its successor, MTIA 500, or Astrid, is expected to complete design work in about a month and reach data centers by the end of 2027. Meta is working with Broadcom on chip design and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on production, and has committed to deploying more than a gigawatt of the chips over a 12-month period. Twelve Arke chips delivered by TSMC on Sept. 1 performed within 2% to 3% of Meta's simulations and have already run Meta models alongside models from DeepSeek and Alibaba. Meta also canceled its planned Olympus processor, which was intended to handle both AI training and inference, partly because of cost concerns, and is instead prioritizing inference, the day-to-day running of AI models.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's co-chief operating officer Y.J. Mii warned that artificial intelligence remains powerful but immature, saying the technology is like a three-year-old superman that can be quite powerful but doesn't know what kind of damage it can inflict and doesn't know right from wrong. Speaking to students at National Taiwan University, Mii said TSMC remains wary of using AI with confidential research and development data because improper deployment could lead to information leaks or data loss. He also said current AI systems provide limited assistance in developing cutting-edge chipmaking processes, where progress depends heavily on physics, manufacturing constraints and access to increasingly advanced equipment. The comments come as the broader technology industry debates whether frontier AI development should slow while safety controls catch up, following recent incidents involving rogue AI agents accessing external systems. TSMC sits at the center of the AI supply chain, with Nvidia and Apple among the major customers depending on its leading-edge manufacturing capacity, making protection of proprietary process technology critical to its competitive moat.
Qualcomm Jumps 3.1% as MediaTek Unveils 2nm Dimensity 9600 Pro
Qualcomm shares rose about 3.1% to $185.82 Tuesday morning even as MediaTek unveiled a new flagship chip aimed at its premium Snapdragon franchise. Reuters reported that MediaTek's Dimensity 9600 Pro uses 2-nanometer manufacturing and claims a 51% improvement in initial generative-AI prompt processing. Qualcomm's fiscal third-quarter revenue totaled $9.9 billion, with handset-chip sales contributing $5.1 billion, or roughly 51.5% of the total, while automotive revenue surged 61% to a record $1.6 billion and combined automotive and internet-of-things revenue rose 28%. The stock trades at $185.815 against a GF Value of $175.82, about 5.68% above GuruFocus' estimate of fair value. The next test is whether Qualcomm can defend Snapdragon economics while its newer automotive, AI software and data-center businesses keep scaling.
TSMC August Revenues Rise 53.3% Year Over Year on AI Chip Demand
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, reported consolidated net revenues for August 2026 of approximately NT$514.81 billion, up 10.1% from July 2026 and 53.3% from August 2025. Cumulative revenues for January through August 2026 reached NT$3,386.87 billion, a 39.3% increase over the same period in 2025, as the company continued to benefit from strong demand for its leading-edge process technologies. High-performance computing remained TSMC's largest platform, at 66% of second-quarter 2026 revenues with 20% sequential growth, while Internet of Things, Digital Consumer Electronics and Automotive revenues rose 4%, 5% and 15%, respectively, from the prior quarter. Advanced nodes of 7-nanometer and below accounted for 77% of second-quarter wafer revenues, with 2-nanometer contributing 3% and 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer accounting for 30%, 33% and 11%. Management pointed to robust AI-related demand from cloud service providers and emerging Agentic AI CPU demand, with work underway across x86, ARM-based and RISC-V architectures. Separately, GlobalFoundries signed a long-term manufacturing agreement with Monolithic Power Systems for its Singapore 300mm facility and finalized a $375 million R&D award with the U.S. Department of Commerce's CHIPS Research and Development Office, while Qualcomm entered a multi-generation collaboration with Amazon on customized AI data-center silicon and optical connectivity up to 1.6T.
Bualuang cuts DELTA target to 330 baht as exchangeable bond deal pressures short-term price
Bualuang Securities stated in an analysis dated September 15, 2026, that the issuance of exchangeable bonds referencing shares of Delta Electronics (Thailand) or DELTA by a company in the Delta Electronics group is likely to create share supply pressure, or overhang, on the stock price in the short term, rather than affecting fundamental earnings, since no new shares are being issued and therefore there is no dilution effect. Delta Electronics Taiwan is preparing to issue exchangeable bonds with a total value of 1.5 billion US dollars through Delta Electronics International Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary that holds a 42.85% stake in DELTA. The bonds are zero-coupon exchangeable bonds, divided into two tranches: a 500 million US dollar tranche maturing in September 2027 and a 1 billion US dollar tranche maturing in September 2031. Bloomberg indicated yields of 2-4% for the 2027 tranche and 0.5-1.5% for the 2031 tranche, while TradingView, citing Reuters data, indicated negative yields in the ranges of 2-4% and 0.5-1.5% respectively, so final yield terms still await confirmation. Regarding put options, the 2027 tranche has no put option, while the 2031 tranche provides put rights in March 2028 and September 2029. Bualuang estimates that using a DELTA share price of 252 baht as the reference price and assuming a 10% discount to the share sale price, the sale price would be approximately 227 baht per share. Including the exchange premium, the exchange price of the 2027 tranche is expected to be approximately 261-272 baht per share and the 2031 tranche approximately 295-318 baht per share. The number of shares potentially available for exchange is estimated at approximately 160-170 million shares, or 1.3-1.4% of total shares, before including the greenshoe over-allotment option, while the previous transaction involved approximately 0.4% of shares. Bualuang views the overhang from this transaction as clearer than the deal in January 2025 because it is larger, the 2027 tranche has a short maturity, and the premium to the market price is lower, resulting in the share price being likely to fluctuate and be capped in the short term. However, the fact that Delta Electronics International Singapore, which holds a 42.85% stake in DELTA, is the issuer of these bonds, differs from the previous transaction conducted through DIH Netherlands, which held a 13.77% stake, and this may make the market more cautious about the possibility that the Delta group will use its holdings to create value through similar transactions in the future. Although the transaction creates short-term pressure, Bualuang maintains a positive view on DELTA's AI and data center business outlook and keeps its buy recommendation, but lowers the target price to 330 baht to reflect the overhang and reduces the valuation premium to a standard level.
Sharp begins taking AI server orders in Japan, with Foxconn manufacturing
Sharp Corp, the Japanese electronics company, said on September 15 that it has begun taking orders for artificial intelligence servers in Japan, with the servers manufactured by its Taiwan-based parent company Foxconn. Sharp plans to start selling the servers in fiscal 2027, which begins in April 2027, targeting local government bodies, research institutions and data center operators. The servers use the latest AI platform from Nvidia, the major US semiconductor company, while Foxconn handles procurement and manufacturing. Sharp aims for AI server business sales of about 250 billion yen, or 1.6 billion dollars, in fiscal 2030, driven by growing demand for AI use. It is also considering manufacturing servers in Japan and aims to expand the business into global markets in the future. Tetsuji Kawamura, chief executive officer of Sharp, said that as AI becomes more a part of social infrastructure, developing reliable computing infrastructure that many companies can use is important. Sharp forecasts the domestic server market will grow from about 900 billion yen in fiscal 2025 to roughly 4 trillion yen in fiscal 2030 and about 7 trillion yen in fiscal 2035. Sharp said it will consider joint manufacturing with Foxconn in the future, and if such joint production goes ahead, its Kameyama plant in Mie Prefecture in central Japan is one option that could serve as a production base.
MediaTek unveils new smartphone chip using TSMC's 2-nanometer technology
Taiwan-based chip design giant MediaTek announced on the 15th a smartphone chip that uses cutting-edge technology from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC. The new product, the Dimensity 9600 Pro, is the company's first mobile processor to adopt TSMC's most advanced 2-nanometer process. It also announced the Dimensity 9600M, manufactured on TSMC's 3-nanometer process and aimed at a broader range of users. The first smartphones carrying both products are expected to go on sale soon. The 9600 Pro features a neural processing unit, an AI-dedicated processor, that allows more complex generative AI applications to run directly on the phone, and its processing performance from when AI begins handling a question to producing an answer is 51 percent faster than the previous generation. The company has until now supplied chips to China's Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and others.
Amazon and Wiwynn Expand Texas AI Server Facility, Adding Nearly 1,000 Jobs
Amazon.com and Wiwynn are expanding Wiwynn's advanced manufacturing facility in Socorro, Texas, with nearly 1,000 additional jobs expected by the end of 2027. Wiwynn says its total investment in the Texas facility will exceed $1.6 billion, with employment eventually expected to reach about 4,000 workers; the investment is being made by Wiwynn, not by Amazon itself. The facility manufactures and integrates the server systems and racks used in Amazon's data center infrastructure, including infrastructure tied to Amazon's custom silicon, whose Trainium and Graviton chip business Amazon says has a revenue run rate above $20 billion, with Trainium3 already nearly fully subscribed. The expansion comes as Amazon has raised its 2026 capital-spending outlook to roughly $220 billion, and CEO Andy Jassy has said the company still does not have enough computing capacity to meet customer demand. Reuters has reported that U.S. electricity consumption is expected to hit record levels in 2026 and 2027 on AI-driven data-center demand, and that Texas has temporarily halted new data-center grid connections while regulators examine a large pipeline of electricity requests.
Thai stocks ride AI wave as foreign capital jumps 80% in first half of 2026
The global AI investment wave is driving foreign capital into Thailand's infrastructure sectors, including data centers, power systems, cooling systems, PCB and storage. Data from Kasikorn Thai shows that in the first half of 2026, Thailand received investment promotion applications totaling 1.47 trillion baht, up 37% from a year earlier, while foreign capital rose 80% to 1.36 trillion baht, led by the digital and electronics industries. Among the stocks seen as direct beneficiaries is DELTA, which makes power supply and cooling systems for data centers and is ramping up commercial production of liquid cooling systems. HANA is viewed as the Thai stock market's new AI proxy, with AI-related products set to enter production lines in the second half of 2026. KCE is expected to benefit from the semiconductor upcycle and tight PCB supply, which could support selling prices and profits in the second half of 2026. SMT gains from the shift to optical connectivity, while CCET benefits from rising demand for both HDD and SSD storage as AI computing generates massive volumes of data. INSET has seen a flood of project inquiries, while WHA and AMATA stand to gain because data center businesses use roughly 12 to 16 times more electricity and water than general industrial plants, meaning industrial estate revenue does not end on the day land is sold but continues through long-term utility income. If foreign capital flows and data center investment accelerate further in 2027, the Thai stock market may see an increasingly clear picture of an AI ecosystem.
Global AI-Linked Stocks Plunge as Industry Leaders Call for Slower Development
AI-related stocks plunged across global equity markets on the 14th, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling 5.9%. On the 12th, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on companies to slow the pace of development amid growing concerns about AI misuse, and xAI's Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said they agreed with him. Altman also disclosed that OpenAI will not hold an initial public offering this year, citing safety concerns. Semiconductor stocks led a global selloff, with Nvidia down 3.4%, Advanced Micro Devices down 4.4%, Micron Technology down 5.3%, Lam Research down 8.3%, Applied Materials down 7.1%, and Bloom Energy down 6.8%; in Asian markets, SoftBank Group plunged more than 10%, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and SK Hynix also declined. Some voices, however, are not taking the warnings at face value: Michael Burry posted on X that such warnings are hype and bluster, Morgan Stanley forecast that AI-related investment will exceed 1.3 trillion dollars by 2027, and Deutsche Bank indicated it is hard to imagine companies voluntarily pausing. Anthropic is expected to list as early as October and is in talks to bring Nvidia in as an anchor investor.
TSMC Plans High-NA Lithography by 2030 as A14 Node Targets 2028
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing plans to adopt High-NA lithography by 2030, according to Reuters, while its A14 manufacturing node is slated to begin production in 2028, roughly two years earlier. The two milestones are not interchangeable: High-NA is the next step in extreme-ultraviolet lithography equipment, whereas A14 is an entire manufacturing node built from multiple process technologies, so TSMC does not need every next-generation tool running simultaneously to advance its leading-edge roadmap. The U.S.-listed shares traded at $418.84, down approximately 3.3% from the earlier session reference point. GuruFocus puts GF Value at $363.08, leaving the stock 15.36% above that estimate. The key test for investors is whether TSMC can keep improving yields, performance and cost per transistor with the equipment already available.
Cerebras Expands AI Inference Push Against Nvidia and Alphabet
Cerebras Systems is expanding its technology roadmap and customer base to strengthen its position in the AI inference market, targeting coding, agentic AI, security and enterprise workloads as it competes with NVIDIA and Alphabet. Core cloud and other services revenues surged 287% year over year to $127.7 million in the second quarter of 2026. The company expects to double system speed annually over the next several years and increase throughput by more than 20 times over the next 18 months, while its disaggregated inference architecture with AMD combines Cerebras systems with AMD Helios racks to raise throughput by up to five times. Its collaboration with Amazon Web Services is expected to bring disaggregated inference to Amazon Bedrock in the first quarter of 2027, and Cerebras supports OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol at a speed that is 10 times faster, with first revenues from other hyperscalers expected around mid-2027. Cerebras signed six deals worth more than $30 million each in the second quarter and added customers such as Cognition, Lovable and Figma in AI coding, while Block, AlphaSense and GSK use its fast inference for agentic workflows and CrowdStrike represents a move into AI-powered cybersecurity. The company has more than 600 MW of data-center capacity live or contracted through the end of 2027, and manufacturing capacity is expected to rise more than tenfold in 2026, supported by secured TSMC wafer supply.
Verizon Adds Nine Members to 6G Innovation Forum, Reports ISAC and AI Trials
Verizon announced the expansion of its 6G Innovation Forum with nine new members and reported successful pre-standard field trials of Integrated Sensing and Communication and an AI Sports Companion prototype. Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Intel, Keysight Technologies, MediaTek, NVIDIA, Palo Alto Networks, Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI Solutions have officially joined the forum, which was launched last year and already includes founding members Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, Meta and Qualcomm Technologies. In one trial staged at a major international soccer celebration in Dallas, Texas, Verizon and Samsung used a single 5G base station and 40MHz of CBRS spectrum to track radio variations from six Samsung Galaxy smartphones, with Samsung's AI RAN and edge AI platform Network in a Server generating real-time crowd-density heatmaps on commercial phones and a tablet. In a second trial at Qualcomm's San Diego campus, the companies used 100 to 400MHz of millimeter-wave spectrum and four synchronized Transmission and Reception Points to track an airborne drone and moving ground vehicles while maintaining uninterrupted 5G Standalone communications to a phone user on the ground. Verizon also showcased a prototype AI Sports Companion application running on the Verizon Edge Network with Meta AI glasses, a locally optimized Small Language Model, an NVIDIA DGX Spark and statistics from SportsDataIO, letting users ask verbally for real-time player statistics, live score interpretations and game-winning probabilities. Verizon said forum members will continue sharing learnings from future demonstrations involving ISAC, digital twins, robotics, AI and advanced wearables, and it views the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles as the ultimate interim proving ground on the road to commercial 6G deployment, supported by its dedicated 6G Lab already established in the host city.
Oil Jumps as Saudi Pipeline Shuts, AI Warnings Hit Tech Stocks
Oil prices jumped Monday after Saudi Arabia closed its East-West pipeline following drone attacks by Yemen's Houthis, with Brent North Sea Crude up 3.0 percent at $107.71 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate up 2.9 percent at $102.90. US average diesel prices hit a new record high above $6.0 a gallon, reaching $6.23, as markets priced a 92 percent probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike on Wednesday. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI firms to slow development of the technology, adding to a selloff in tech stocks that sent Tokyo-listed SoftBank down more than 10 percent and chipmaker Kioxia down more than six percent, with SK hynix, Samsung and TSMC also sharply lower. European markets were mostly lower around midday, though London's FTSE 100 rose 0.7 percent to 10,727.07 points on gains for Shell and BP, while Paris's CAC 40 fell 0.8 percent and Frankfurt's DAX lost 0.5 percent. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said oil and AI fears were causing a double headache for investors, compounding inflation worries stoked by last week's elevated US consumer price index data.
KKP Says AI Enters a New Cycle, Opening the Way for Thailand to Capture a New Wave of FDI, Highlights 10 Standout Stocks
Kiatnakin Phatra Securities Public Company Limited, or KKP, assesses that global AI investment is moving beyond chips into the surrounding infrastructure, which will create positive ripple effects for the Thai economy, especially the opportunity to attract a new wave of foreign direct investment, or FDI, into the country's industrial sector and advanced technology supply chain. The analysis notes that as AI systems grow larger, power per rack in data centers rises from several tens of kilowatts to about 600 kilowatts and could reach 1 megawatt in the future, shifting the main constraints to power delivery systems, cooling systems, and data transmission. KKP sees two key technologies that will drive the next phase: 800VDC technology and the shift to optical connectivity. KKP expects the new wave of FDI to flow into semiconductors, printed circuit boards, or PCBs, and advanced electronics, estimating that Thailand's major industrial estate developers, WHA and AMATA, will see land sales increase by about 2,500 rai per year and 2,000 rai per year, respectively. For the standout stocks that stand to benefit, KKP states that Delta Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited, or DELTA, is ready to serve demand for data center power systems and liquid cooling systems, while Hana Microelectronics Public Company Limited, or HANA, benefits from demand for analog ICs and power semiconductors. KCE Electronics Public Company Limited, or KCE, is ready to serve demand for high-end PCBs, and Stars Microelectronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited, or SMT, benefits directly from the shift to optical connectivity technology. Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited, or CCET, has the potential to serve demand for both HDD and SSD storage devices. Beyond the electronics group, KKP states that AI's expansion also benefits energy infrastructure, as a global shortage of large power transformers bodes well for Thirai Public Company Limited, or TRT, while demand for transformer oil and fluids for liquid cooling systems opens opportunities for P.S.P. Specialties Public Company Limited, or PSP, as well as the strategic partnership of Millennium Group Corporation (Asia) Public Company Limited, or MGC, in developing humanoid robots. Supapong Iamkong-aek, an analyst at Kiatnakin Phatra Securities Public Company Limited, said global AI investment will not stop at software or chips but is spreading to areas where Thailand has good cost advantages, namely infrastructure and downstream industries, which is a window of opportunity that remains wide open for the Thai economy.
Ambarella CEO Targets 10%-15% Fiscal 2027 Growth on Edge AI Demand
Ambarella CEO Fermi Wang said the fabless chipmaker is positioning its system-on-chip portfolio for broader edge AI adoption across enterprise security, consumer video, wearables, automotive and edge infrastructure, speaking at Citi's TMT Conference. Automotive accounts for about 30% of Ambarella's revenue and security remains its largest market, while wearables represented roughly 10% of revenue, according to figures cited by the conference moderator. Wang said the company's Cooper software development kit supports its 15 AI SoCs across a portfolio spanning 1 TOPS to 1,000 TOPS, and he named power efficiency as its primary competitive advantage, calling Qualcomm its largest competitor. Ambarella recorded record automotive revenue in its second quarter and has announced partnerships involving Aurora, Continental and Bosch, and Wang said a single consumer vehicle design win could represent several hundred million dollars of revenue. The company works exclusively with Samsung Foundry and expects its first 4-nanometer chip to enter production, and it is targeting 10% to 15% fiscal 2027 revenue growth, with memory availability and pricing the main uncertainty.
Goldman Sachs Projects 6.5 Million Humanoid Robots Shipped by 2035
Goldman Sachs now projects 6.5 million humanoid robot units shipped globally by 2035, a sharp upgrade to its prior modeling, in a new Physical AI research report. The firm sees the ramp arriving in phases: 75,000 units in 2026, 890,000 by 2030, revised up from a prior estimate of 256,000, and 6.5 million by 2035, representing a $138 billion market opportunity led by logistics, warehousing, and automotive. Goldman itself reported record Q2 2026 net revenues of $20.3 billion and record EPS of $20.98, with CEO David Solomon describing an AI CapEx super cycle with demands on financing across every instrument, region, and industry. On the compute layer, NVIDIA posted Q2 FY27 revenue of $96.22B, up 105.85% year over year, and guided Q3 to $108.0B, while CEO Jensen Huang said Amazon will adopt its full physical AI stack to power its fleet of warehouse robots. On the foundry layer, TSMC guided Q3 2026 revenue between $44.6 billion and $45.8 billion and expects full-year 2026 revenue growth slightly above 40% year-over-year in U.S. dollar terms, and on the test-and-automation layer, Teradyne reported Q2 2026 revenue of $1.329B, up 103.9% year over year, with Robotics revenue of $100 million, up 33% year over year. Tesla is installing first-generation Optimus production lines at Fremont after decommissioning Model S and X lines, with Elon Musk describing an aspirational target of 10 million units a year of Optimus 4 versus a million units a year of Optimus 3, while the risk alongside the opportunity is a governance one, as Anthropic employees have cited a 10% chance AI wipes out humankind within 10 years and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has floated an agreement among major AI developers to slow down.
Hello Group Swings to RMB237.4 Million Profit as Revenue Falls 5.1%
Hello Group reported second-quarter 2026 net income of RMB237.4 million, or $35 million, reversing a net loss of RMB140.2 million a year earlier, even as total net revenue fell 5.1% year over year to RMB2,486.0 million, or $366.4 million. The overseas business drove the improvement, with revenue outside the Chinese mainland up 52.0% year over year to RMB672.7 million, or $99.1 million, and up 48.2% to RMB1,270.1 million, or $187.2 million, for the first half of 2026, while paying users on the core Momo app rose to 3.9 million from 3.5 million a year earlier. The China business kept shrinking: value-added service revenue fell 5.4% to RMB2.44 billion, or $359.6 million, mainland net revenue dropped to RMB1.81 billion, or $267.2 million, from RMB2.18 billion, and Tantan's paying users slid to 0.5 million from 0.7 million. Costs rose 1.5% to RMB2.26 billion, or $333.1 million, pushing income from operations down to RMB238 million from RMB403.5 million, and the profit turnaround was aided by income tax expense falling to RMB69.6 million from RMB638.4 million after the year-ago quarter included an additional RMB547.9 million withholding tax accrual. Hello Group guided third-quarter 2026 revenue to RMB2.4 billion to RMB2.5 billion, a year-over-year decline of 9.4% to 5.7%, and said it had repurchased 68.0 million ADSs for $424.1 million at an average price of $6.22 per ADS as of September 3, leaving $62.0 million in the program.
Asia Plus keeps Buy on DELTA with 342 baht target, expects Q3/2026 profit to be the year's peak
Asia Plus Securities issued an analysis of Delta Electronics (Thailand) Public Company Limited, or DELTA, maintaining a Buy recommendation with a target price of 342 baht, and projecting normalised profit for 2026-2027 at 35-49 billion baht, equivalent to average annual growth of 42%. The research team said profit has already passed its low point for the year in Q2/2026, and that second-half 2026 profit will be better than the first half, while normalised profit in 2026-2027 is expected to grow the most in the sector even though the share price remains a laggard. On the sales side, DELTA's parent company in Taiwan reported August 2026 sales of 64 billion Taiwan dollars, down 4% month-on-month but still up 35% year-on-year and above the Q2/2026 average of 61 billion Taiwan dollars. That put sales for the first two months of the quarter, July and August 2026, at 130 billion Taiwan dollars, up 41% year-on-year. Although parent company sales declined, DELTA's own sales in the same period do not necessarily have to fall in step, because parent sales cover the entire group including subsidiaries worldwide. Still, DELTA Thailand's sales tend to move in the same direction as the parent's, with a correlation of about 96%, so DELTA's July-August 2026 sales are expected to grow better than in Q2/2026, just as the parent's did. In addition, the raw material shortage seen in Q2/2026 began to ease from July 2026, which is expected to keep production and deliveries recovering. Overall, the research team expects DELTA's Q3/2026 sales to grow both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, and anticipates better quarter-on-quarter margins, with royalty payments as a share of sales falling quarter-on-quarter because products made with DELTA's own technology will account for a larger share in the second half of 2026. That should help push Q3/2026 profit to the year's high, helped by a low base in Q3/2025.
TSM Posts Record August Revenue of NT$514.81 Billion, Up 53.3%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported record August revenue of NT$514.81 billion, up 53.3% year over year, a fresh signal that leading-edge semiconductor demand remains exceptionally strong. The result lands as Broadcom builds out a custom AI accelerator business with hyperscalers, including a Meta program called Iris that Broadcom worked on and TSM fabricated, according to Reuters. TSM's manufacturing position lets it supply competing architectures, so share shifting from Nvidia's merchant GPUs to custom silicon does not necessarily hurt it. Hedge-fund ownership diverged modestly in the second quarter, with TSM held by 249 funds, up from 234, while Broadcom slipped to 170 funds from 173. Short interest stood at about 0.6% of float for TSM and roughly 1.2% for Broadcom as of August 14.
TSMC August Revenue Hits Record NT$514.81 Billion, Up 53.3%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported record August revenue of NT$514.81 billion, up 53.3% from a year earlier and 10.1% sequentially, with January-through-August revenue up 39.3%. The result signals strong advanced semiconductor demand as Advanced Micro Devices scales its data-center CPUs and AI accelerators, which depend on leading-edge foundry capacity. Barron's noted concerns over reports that TSMC could raise chip prices by as much as 10% next year, with AMD among the customers exposed to higher foundry costs. Hedge fund ownership of both stocks rose in the second quarter, with 249 funds holding TSM, up from 234, and AMD ownership climbing to 164 funds from 134, while short interest stood near 0.6% for TSM and roughly 2.5% for AMD as of August 14.
TSMC Trades at $428 as 24/7 Wall St. Sets $492 Target on Record August Sales
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is trading at $428.29 against a 24/7 Wall St. price target of $492.37, implying 14.96% upside on a buy rating with 90% confidence. The call rests on record August 2026 revenue that surged 53.3% year over year, with January-through-August revenue up 39.3%, prompting management to raise full-year 2026 revenue guidance to slightly above 40% USD growth. Q2 2026 delivered EPS of $4.31 against a $3.8866 estimate, revenue of $40.20 billion, up 36.05% year over year, and a 67.7% gross margin, while Q3 revenue is guided to $44.6 billion to $45.8 billion and the 2026 capital budget was raised to $60 billion to $64 billion. The bull case leans on demand from Nvidia, whose Q3 guide of $108 billion, and Broadcom, whose Q3 FY26 AI semiconductor revenue reached $16.7 billion, up 221% year over year, effectively lock in TSMC's advanced-node order book, while Intel Foundry lost $2.1 billion in its latest quarter. The main near-term risk is gross-margin compression, with the 2nm ramp expected to dilute gross margin by 3 to 4 percentage points and overseas fabs adding another 2 to 3 points of drag, alongside Taiwan-Strait geopolitics as an unpriced tail risk; the bear-case one-year price is $413.79 against a bull case of $525.08 and a sell-side consensus target of $552.38.
JPMorgan Names KLA Top Chip-Equipment Pick, Lifts WFE Forecasts
JPMorgan raised its forecasts for the wafer fabrication equipment market and named KLA as its top pick among U.S. chip-equipment makers in a note to clients on Friday. Analyst Mio Shikanai lifted the bank's WFE market growth estimates to 31% for 2026, taking the market to $163 billion, 38% for 2027 at $225 billion and 17% for 2028 at $263 billion, a 28% compound annual growth rate over 2025 to 2028. Shikanai said cloud service providers are accelerating their investments in response to further growth in AI-related demand, with spending by the top four U.S. players seen growing at a 58% annual rate through 2028. DRAM memory and TSMC drove the upgrade, with the analyst expecting memory supply to lag demand even in 2028 and TSMC's leading-edge capacity to stay above 100% utilization. Shikanai said she sees the most attractive risk/reward in KLA given its relative underperformance year to date, underappreciated exposure to foundry and logic-led WFE spending in 2027, and potential for upward revisions to consensus revenue estimates, noting KLA shares are up about 50% this year but have lagged peers Lam Research and Applied Materials, up roughly 85% and 82%, respectively.
Asia Plus says TSMC's August sales up 35%, reinforcing strong AI outlook, recommends gradual buying
Asia Plus Securities stated that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, reported August 2026 sales of 510 billion Taiwan dollars, up 10% from the previous month and up 35% compared with the same period last year, marking a continuing record high. Total sales in the first two months of the third quarter of 2026 came to 980 billion Taiwan dollars, up 49% from the same period last year, while total sales in the first eight months of 2026 reached 3.4 trillion Taiwan dollars, up 39% compared with the same period last year. Against the company's third-quarter 2026 sales target of approximately 1.44 to 1.48 trillion Taiwan dollars, Asia Plus assesses that in September 2026 TSMC does not need to significantly accelerate sales, since sales of roughly 460 to 500 billion Taiwan dollars would be enough to meet the quarter's target. Asia Plus views TSMC's August 2026 sales growth, which continues to set record highs, not merely as a positive factor specific to TSMC, but also as a reflection that demand for artificial intelligence, or AI, chips remains strong and that AI investment is still moving forward. Because TSMC is the world's largest chipmaker, its growth is regarded as a key indicator for the direction of the semiconductor industry as well as for other players in the supply chain. Asia Plus views TSMC as still one of the companies that benefit directly from the AI semiconductor cycle. However, Asia Plus recommends gradual buying, as it views TSMC's fundamentals as still strong but believes the share price has already priced in some of the positive factors, with TSMC shares up 58% since the start of the year, or year to date. TSMC is the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, operating as a contract chipmaker, or foundry, for chip design companies that do not have their own fabrication plants, known as fabless firms, such as NVIDIA, AMD, Apple, Qualcomm and Broadcom. On the technical view, Asia Plus assesses TSMC shares as being in a sideways-up pattern, with support at 400 dollars and resistance at 480 dollars.
KCE and HANA Surge as Brokers Overweight the Sector, Expect Bright Q3/26 Earnings
Shares of KCE and HANA rose sharply, with brokers expecting the electronics group to post strong third-quarter 2026 earnings, tracking the still-upward global semiconductor and electronics cycle, and assigning an overweight investment rating, with DELTA picked as the group's top stock. Most recently, KCE stood at 64.75 baht, up 6.25 baht, or 10.68%, on turnover of 4.29425 billion baht, while HANA stood at 50.25 baht, up 2.25 baht, or 4.69%, on turnover of 1.24979 billion baht. Asia Plus Securities said TSMC's August 2026 sales came in at 510,000 Taiwan dollars, up 10% from the previous month and up 53% from August 2025, while combined sales for the first two months of the third quarter of 2026 stood at 980,000 Taiwan dollars, up 49% year on year and up 14% from the first two months of the previous quarter. The research team believes the overall third-quarter 2026 outlook for Thai electronics stocks will be bright, in line with the still-upward global semiconductor and electronics cycle, and helped by the high season for Thai electronics exports, with overall sales and profits expected to advance toward their annual peak. It maintained an overweight investment rating, expecting normal profits for the full year 2026 among the stocks it covers to grow about 43% year on year and to keep growing by another roughly 41% in 2027. The research team picked DELTA as its top pick with a target price of 342 baht, citing rising global investment in AI and data centers, which is expected to benefit DELTA most within the group because it makes power supplies and cooling systems for AI and data centers. It expects DELTA's profits to grow by an average of about 42% in 2026 and 2027, and noted the stock remains a laggard, having risen 56% since the start of the year, less than HANA and KCE, which have already gained 187% to 209%.
KCE Surges 10.68%, Leading Thai Electronics Group; Asia Plus Picks DELTA as Top Pick
Thai electronics stocks rose prominently this morning, led by KCE, whose price jumped 10.68%, or 6.25 baht, to trade at 64.75 baht. HANA traded at 50.25 baht, up 2.25 baht, or 4.69%. DELTA fell 6 baht, or 2.24%, to trade at 262 baht as of 11:47 a.m. The supporting factor came from August 2026 sales of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the world's largest AI chipmaker, which came in at 510 billion Taiwan dollars, up 10% from the previous month and up 53% from August 2025. Combined sales for the first two months of the third quarter stood at 980 billion Taiwan dollars, up 49% year on year. Asia Plus Securities stated that third-quarter earnings of the Thai electronics group should be bright, in line with the global semiconductor and electronics cycle, which remains on an uptrend. It gave an overweight recommendation, expecting normal profit for all of 2026 to grow about 43% and to continue growing about 41% in 2027. It selected DELTA as its Top Pick because it benefits most directly from global AI and data center investment, expecting average profit growth of about 42% in 2026-2027, while the share price remains a laggard, having risen 56% since the start of the year, less than HANA and KCE, which have already risen 187-209%.
KCE shares surge 10.68% on news of pilot PCB production for Tesla's Optimus robot
KCE shares closed the morning session at 64.75 baht, up 6.25 baht, or 10.68%, buoyed by a return of buying interest on roughly three supporting factors. The main driver came from market chatter that KCE is in the pilot stage of producing printed circuit boards for Tesla for use in its Optimus humanoid robot development project. Although this remains only a testing phase with no official confirmation of a commercial order, the market views it as a strongly positive sentiment, because success would elevate KCE from an automotive PCB maker of electronic components into the robotics and AI industry in earnest, where margins and growth prospects are high. In addition, the electronic components and semiconductor theme has returned to favour. On September 10, Krungthai XSpring Securities noted that KCE and HANA rose against the trend of DELTA, as the market saw stronger earnings prospects, while buying also rotated out of DELTA into KCE and HANA after DELTA came under pressure in line with its parent stock in Taiwan. Investors, meanwhile, view the profit outlook for KCE and HANA as stronger.
Positron AI Raises $875 Million to Challenge NVIDIA's HBM Inference Lock
Positron AI has raised $875 million in a combined Series C and Series C-1 round, valuing the Reno-based startup at $5 billion post-money. The financing, co-led by NEA, Andra Capital, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and SemiAnalysis Capital, represents a roughly five-fold markup from the company's February 2026 Series B valuation of just over $1 billion. The bet is that AI inference economics can be redesigned by replacing supply-constrained high-bandwidth memory with commodity LPDDR5X, the approach behind Positron's Asimov inference ASIC built on TSMC's N3P process. A single Asimov chip carries 288 GB of on-package LPDDR5X, expandable to 2.3 TB via CXL expansion, and Positron claims greater than 90% bandwidth utilization on transformer inference workloads versus less than 30% typically realized on NVIDIA GPUs. Asimov is scheduled for tapeout by the end of 2026, with production slated for the second half of 2027, meaning the chip will not be commercially available for at least twelve months.
ASE Technology Sees LEAP Revenue Tracking Ahead of $3.5 Billion 2026 Target
ASE Technology Holding said its leading-edge advanced packaging (LEAP) revenues are tracking ahead of its earlier 2026 target of $3.5 billion, with management now expecting to add another few hundred million dollars to this year's LEAP revenues and targeting a doubling of LEAP revenues in 2027. The company plans to add facilities and equipment to expand LEAP capacity, including another $2 billion of CapEx added to its 2026 plans, and said it expects to continue making heavy investments in both advanced packaging and testing to support customer demand. In the second quarter of 2026, ATM revenues rose 36% year over year to TWD 126.1 billion, while higher LEAP volumes helped lift ATM gross margin to 27.3% from 21.9% a year earlier, and management sees ATM gross margin moving above 30% in the fourth quarter of 2026. ASE said its near-term growth is limited by how quickly it can install equipment and complete new facilities, and it is working on 13 greenfield and eight brownfield projects expected to provide capacity through 2028 and into part of 2029. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 and 2027 indicates revenue growth of around 27.9% and 22.5%, respectively, and EPS growth of 115.8% and 57.3%.
TSMC and ASML Team Up to Expand Large-Format Photomasks for High NA EUV
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is teaming up with ASML Holding N.V. to advance the semiconductor industry's shift toward larger-format extreme ultraviolet photomasks. The companies established the industrywide initiative on Sept. 7, ahead of the annual SPIE BACUS Conference in Monterey, CA, aiming to establish a 12-inch mask pilot line by 2031 and pave the way for 12-inch High-NA lithography systems to enter advanced-node production by 2033. While High Numerical Aperture EUV will initially be adopted for production using the current 6-inch masks, the transition to larger 12-inch masks is expected to boost fab productivity, lower chipmaking costs and eliminate stitching constraints across the semiconductor industry. TSMC plans to use ASML's High-NA technology in high-volume manufacturing for advanced nodes starting in 2030, and expects more layers to require High NA EUV as nodes advance, primarily because of increasingly complex transistor architectures needed for AI applications. Separately, Intel Foundry and ASML said High NA is now being used in high-volume manufacturing, with more than one million wafers processed to date across early tool certification and testing, research and development, and volume production on select layers for a subset of Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, code-named Panther Lake.
Today's world news brief. Kyodo reports that the U.S. Republican Party opened a special two-day convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, September 9, to rally forces ahead of the November midterm elections. President Donald Trump took the stage to court votes and promised a large payout of 5,000 dollars to each voter if Republicans keep their majority in Congress. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that a key adviser to Trump warned the Iran war could drag on for the remainder of his term. Samsung Electronics disclosed that the share of iOS users worldwide switching to the Galaxy Z Fold8, launched in July, rose 1.6 times compared with the previous generation, the Galaxy Z Fold7 and Flip7, after Apple just unveiled its first foldable-screen iPhone. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker from Taiwan, reported August revenue of 514.8 billion Taiwan dollars, or 16.35 billion U.S. dollars, surging 53.3% from the same period a year earlier and up 10.1% from July's level. Chinese AI startup DeepSeek launched its new model DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, the smallest model in its new architecture family, designed to significantly boost inference speed and cut processing costs. In addition, the Philippine Coast Guard disclosed that a fire broke out on the passenger ferry MV Juna Aster off the coast of Coron municipality in Palawan province, killing at least 5 people, with 87 others still missing. The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that August 2026 was the hottest month ever recorded in history.
MediaTek August Sales Jump 44% on AI Chip Momentum
MediaTek Inc. reported a 44% surge in monthly sales, boosted by its emerging AI chip business from customers including Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Revenue in August rose to NT$64.2 billion, or $2 billion, while analysts on average are looking for 10% sales growth in the current quarter. The Taiwanese chipmaker is gaining momentum ahead of plans to start mass production of its first AI chip customized for a major US cloud service provider in the fourth quarter; analysts said the customer, which MediaTek has not named, is Google. The nascent AI business is helping the company offset a downturn in the Android smartphone market, where it competes with US-based Qualcomm Inc. for mobile processor orders. MediaTek has also won backing from Nvidia Corp. and Alphabet, which participated in the Taiwanese chipmaker's recent bond sale, with Nvidia chipping in as much as $3.5 billion. The company previously said it expects AI chip sales to reach about $2 billion this year and targets 15% of the $80 billion segment next year.