ASML has inaugurated a technical training center in Phoenix, Arizona, designed to train more than 1,000 engineers annually for the expanding semiconductor industry in the US. The 56,000-square-foot facility is ASML’s ninth global training site and the only one in the US covering all product lines, including extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines as well as metrology inspection systems.

Rapid advances in AI technology have exposed fundamental network bottlenecks, since traditional connections can no longer keep up with the massive transmission demands of AI. Billions of dollars have thus been funneled into photonic chip startups, amid an ongoing seismic shift in how chips communicate.

Hon Hai Tech Day (HHTD25) focused on the role of physical AI in future factories, featuring humanoid, task-specific, and service robots on-site and demonstrating how AI can train them through digital-twin simulations based on real production-line needs.

The next stage of the future factory will be the era of Physical AI. At Hon Hai Tech Day (HHTD25) held on November 21, Foxconn chief digital officer Zhe Shi stated that future factories will be driven by an AI “brain,” empowering various robots, machines, and automated equipment with perception, understanding, and autonomous action capabilities.