Japan joins US Genesis Mission, partners with Nvidia and national labs to advance AI science

The Japanese government has agreed to become the first international partner in a US-led initiative accelerating scientific research through AI. According to media outlets including Nikkei and The Register, on January 27, 2026, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced its formal participation in the Trump administration’s Genesis Mission program.

Continue reading

Realtek tops US$3.8 billion in 2025 revenue, signals solid growth from customer restocking in 1H26

Realtek said at its January 28, 2026, earnings call that fourth-quarter 2025 revenue reached NT$26.28 billion (US$840 million), down 10.9% from the previous quarter and 0.3% from a year earlier. Gross margin declined to 48.1%, down 1.6 percentage points quarter over quarter and 0.3 percentage points year over year. Operating profit fell to NT$2.34 billion, down 25% sequentially and 18.9% annually.

Continue reading

Why can’t tech giants escape China’s smartphone production grip?

Global technology companies, including Google, are increasingly shifting new product introduction (NPI) stages away from China to reduce geopolitical risks, with recent reports indicating Google has begun relocating NPI for its premium smartphones to Vietnam. Industry insiders note initial progress but emphasize significant structural hurdles in this complex transition.

Continue reading

Column: How chip value spillover is redefining Taiwan’s economic and industrial trajectory

I describe the close integration of Taiwan’s semiconductor and electronics industries as the spillover of chip economic value. In earlier phases of the industry, economic value creation in electronic systems was highly concentrated at the chip level. Advancing process nodes alone was sufficient to capture most of the value. That model no longer holds. Today, improvements in manufacturing technology must propagate beyond wafer fabrication to packaging, testing, and ultimately system-level integration to translate into tradable economic value.

Continue reading

ASML orders beat expectations as company plans 1,700 layoffs

ASML reported stronger-than-expected bookings in the fourth quarter of 2025 as customers stepped up investment in artificial intelligence chipmaking capacity, according to Reuters. The Dutch semiconductor equipment maker said fourth-quarter bookings reached EUR13.2 billion (US$15.8 billion), more than double the EUR5.4 billion recorded in the previous quarter and well above analyst expectations of EUR6.32 billion, based on data from Visible Alpha.

Continue reading

Toppan keeps legal options open for Giantplus Technology’s share transfer dispute

Giantplus Technology, which focuses on small- and medium-sized panels, recently faced a management rights dispute. The largest shareholder, Japan’s Toppan Holdings, had originally agreed with JuYi Investment to transfer 53.1% of Giantplus Technology’s shares in two phases. However, the second phase of the transaction has stalled, and reports indicate that Toppan does not rule out resolving the matter through legal channels.

Continue reading