When Meta announced its US$2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus, it was meant to be a victory lap for CEO Mark Zuckerberg. By bringing what it billed as the world’s most advanced agentic AI under the Meta umbrella, the social media giant was expected to leapfrog OpenAI and Google. Instead, the deal has become a flashpoint for geopolitical tension. According to The New York Times and Alpha Spread, the acquisition is now entangled in investigations over “Singapore washing” and questions about the origins of its digital infrastructure.

Amid tightening memory supply and surging demand for AI-ready infrastructure, hardware vendors are racing to redesign systems for the next phase of enterprise AI adoption — a shift thrown into sharp relief at Nvidia’s GTC 2026.

On March 17, IBM completed its acquisition of Confluent, Inc., the data streaming platform used by more than 6,500 enterprises — including 40% of the Fortune 500 — to power real-time operations. Under the agreement, IBM acquired all issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent for US$31 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of approximately US$11 billion.

Wistron Group posted record revenue and earnings per share in 2025, driven by strong demand for AI servers. Still, its gross margin fell as higher unit prices and material costs tied to increased shipments of AI server racks weighed on profitability.