Tesla Inc.'s weekend move to slash prices across its range in China risks triggering a new round in the nation's bruising price war, with Li Auto Inc. immediately responding with discounts and cash rebates on new models.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Huawei Technologies Co.'s latest phone shows that China remains behind on cutting-edge chip technology.

Nvidia announced that Japan's new quantum supercomputer — designed to advance the nation's quantum computing initiative — will be powered by Nvidia platforms for accelerated and quantum computing.

After the memory market, led by DRAM, began to rebound, NAND Flash has also entered the final stages of its downturn. Customer inventories have been consumed, and with the growth in demand driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), it's reported that Samsung Electronics' NAND utilization rate has increased to nearly 90%.

Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) unveils a JPY 72.5 billion (US$480 million) subsidy to back Generative AI (GenAI) development by five local firms, including telecom leader KDDI.

Japanese IC substrate manufacturer Shinko Electric Industries has announced that due to poor sales of its main product, flip chip packaging substrates, the upcoming fiscal report for the fiscal year 2023 (April 2023 to March 2024) will see a comprehensive downward revision in both revenue and profit. This marks the second downward revision for Shinko Electric.

Reducing production costs has been a major task for carmakers as a price war persists in the EV market. According to Nikkei, Honda Motor is trying to produce integrated vehicle bodies with cheaper steel through collaboration with Europe-based steel maker ArcelorMittal.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced plans to increase investment in the Ang Mo Kio campus, eyeing to expand the AI talent pool of the country.

Mexico has reportedly declined to offer incentives to China-based EV players for their sites in the country due to pressure from the US.

Intel recently completed the assembly of the industry's first High-NA Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment and announced plans to start producing 1nm-level semiconductors as early as 2025.

Upon TSMC Arizona's signing of a Preliminary Memorandum of Terms (PMT) with the Biden Administration, the decision to manufacture 2nm chips in its third fab and part of the second fab capacities in Arizona has many people questioning the plan.

TSMC's advanced packaging CoWoS capacity continues to have strong demand. Even after doubling its capacity in 2024 and collaborating with OSAT companies, it can still not fully meet customer demands.

The debut of Meta Platforms' latest AI model, Llama 3 was accompanied by a simultaneous update of Meta AI.

With ASML recently stating that 20% of their recent orders are held by Chinese customers and nearly half of their revenue comes from China, the future operation trend of the world's largest lithography maker can be said to be deeply tied to China.

Countries worldwide have been ramping up their investments in marine energy development due to concerns about energy security.

Samsung has announced plans to double the number of software developers for mobile Application Processors (APs) within the next 2-3 years.

As the AI boom gains momentum, the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) sector emerges as a pivotal battleground, with three major memory chipmakers vying to reshape the industry landscape. Despite the sixth-generation HBM4 not expected to enter mass production until 2026, the alliance formulation race for dominance in the AI sector is well underway.

Micro LED applications are expected to multiply in the coming years, especially in the automotive sector. Li Yun-Li, CEO of micro LED supplier PlayNitride, said customers will likely put the company's product into concept vehicles in 2025 and enter the design phase of volume-production cars in 2027. The adoption of micro LED solutions in EVs could progress faster than expected.

Intel recently announced that its foundry operations, Intel Foundry, achieved a significant milestone in advanced semiconductor manufacturing by completing the assembly of the industry's first commercial high-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet (High-NA EUV) lithography equipment, which is located at the company's R&D campus in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Recent market rumors suggest Apple is considering developing robots as its next product line. While there's no further news on what business model Apple might adopt, it seems inevitable that robots will become the next big thing.

Padget Electronics, a subsidiary of India-based Dixon Technologies, signed an agreement with Longcheer, the world's second-largest smartphone ODM based in China, for smartphone manufacturing.

Nissan Motor said it will leverage the Giga-casting technique to produce its next-generation EVs and rapidly reduce costs. The automaker recently also invited media members to check its pilot lines for all-solid-state batteries under construction.

The surge in computational demand driven by AI is leading to a significant increase in electricity consumption in data centers.

Taiwan's major panel specialist Innolux is poised to wow the audiences at the upcoming Touch Taiwan 2024 by showcasing the industry's first color conversion MicroLED display technology alongside other pioneering MicroLED innovations and applications.

To drive the technologies and products of the future, creative companies rely on end-to-end solutions across chips, IPs, packages, PCBs, and systems to meet strict design requirements and deliver superior products.

After securing a 27-inch OLED display sale to Hyundai Motor Group's Genesis, LG Display (LGD) also reportedly received a large-sized LCD order from a foreign luxury car brand. This LCD order represents the longest size among LGD's automotive displays and is currently in preparation, with a target to officially begin mass production in the first quarter of 2026.

These are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories in the week of April 15 - April 19.

Smartphone sales boomed in India, the world's second-largest smartphone market, during the first quarter of 2024, which is good news for smartphone vendors, especially as global electronics companies work hard to reduce their high inventory levels.

Amidst a series of challenging developments, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's planned visit to India was anticipated as a potential morale booster for Tesla as well as for India.

Global semiconductor firms, including Arm, expressed optimism about India. DIGITIMES Research observed that industrial PC vendors are diversifying into Southeast and South Asia.

SK Hynix Inc. will have to contend with high expectations when it reports next week after solid earnings from the likes of Micron Technology Inc. cemented optimism about demand for artificial intelligence chips.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI hired its first employee in India, appointing a government relations head just as the country votes in a new administration that will shape artificial intelligence regulations in the world's most populous nation.

Google's latest wave of staff cuts is reportedly primarily focused on the finance team

On April 19, SK Hynix announced that it had recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with TSMC. The two companies will collaborate closely on producing next-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM) products and enhancing advanced packaging technologies integrating HBM with logic layers.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) chip design research organization in Silicon Valley to challenge Nvidia, the current leader in the AI semiconductor market, by developing AI chips based on the RISC-V architecture.