AI-driven automation is reshaping the cybersecurity requirements of semiconductor manufacturing, with zero-trust architecture, trusted data, and interoperable standards becoming increasingly important as fabs move toward more autonomous operations.

AI demand is driving a broader repricing cycle across the foundry industry in 2026. Tightness that began at leading-edge nodes is spreading into mature and specialty processes, lifting wafer prices, utilisation and downstream chip costs.

AI is driving a new wave of technological demand and changing how the semiconductor industry innovates, according to Benjamin Hein, member of the executive board and CEO of the Electronics Business Sector at Merck. As AI becomes an integral part of semiconductor innovation, future competitive advantages in the industry will depend less on any single process or material, but rather on the ability to combine materials, processes, packaging, metrology, and software into complete processes. In this sense, AI-driven growth in the semiconductor industry is like “Moore’s Law on steroids,” and collaboration will become the industry’s next Moore’s Law.