chips

The white-haired stock god Serenity stated that the storage chip industry is experiencing unprecedented long-term demand visibility, with large cloud service providers like Google even seeking to sign long-term supply agreements extending to 2035. However, the market is still affected by concerns over the sustainability of AI infrastructure investments and financing risks.Serenity also cited the views of Dell CEO Michael Dell, who indicated that the shortage of storage chip supply may last for about 4 years, as the construction cycle for new fabs is relatively long, and the related capacity is expected to be released by 2029 to 2030. Dell anticipates that the imbalance between supply and demand for storage chips may further worsen by 2027.

According to Bloomberg on October 16, China proposed to include advanced artificial intelligence technology in the export control list, which may restrict the overseas transfer of AI models and chips in order to implement stricter controls on domestic progress in this strategic field.The draft covers 23 AI technologies, including large language models, intelligent agents, chip design, and computing power clusters. Restricted technologies include model weights and source code for products exceeding specific performance thresholds, with relevant policy texts available on the public page of the Ministry of Commerce of China.

According to Bloomberg, ByteDance is close to reaching an agreement with MediaTek to procure semiconductors for data centers. Sources familiar with the matter say that the Chinese social media company is in deep discussions with MediaTek regarding the supply of custom chips, which will be used to operate ByteDance's data centers.Sources indicate that MediaTek will provide an unspecified number of application-specific integrated circuits, which are chips customized for the client's platform. If the deal is finalized, ByteDance could become MediaTek's second-largest customer for such chips after Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and it would help the Taiwanese chipmaker compete with Qualcomm. Due to the private nature of the arrangements, the sources requested anonymity.

Analyst Murphy posted on platform X, stating that as of October 15, 2026, Bitcoin has fallen to around $81,000 on October 9, 12, and 15, repeatedly testing the same support area. The latest round of declines, combined with U.S. inflation exceeding expectations, rising market concerns about the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy further, and weakening U.S. stocks, has put overall pressure on risk assets.Murphy noted that from the on-chain adjusted realized loss data, the scale of losses corresponding to the three dips shows a decreasing trend: the loss on October 12 was less than that on October 9, and while the loss on October 15 was larger than on October 12, it was still lower than on October 9. October 9 appears to be a peak where short-term price-sensitive chips concentrated their exit; during the second dip, market sentiment was more cautious, and the willingness to sell was not strong; the third decline, under macroeconomic negative influences, again forced some swing chips to stop-loss and exit. Therefore, the current market is closer to a gradual clearing of swing chips rather than a full-blown panic sell-off. If the proportion of short-term holders' losses remains around 31%, below the historical cumulative average of 42.7%, it indicates that the clearing of chips may not be sufficient, and further volatility and selling pressure may still occur. Next, it should be observed whether the scale of realized losses continues to converge: if the price maintains near the current support area and the release of losses gradually weakens, it indicates that passive selling is decreasing, and a phase adjustment may be nearing its end; if the scale of losses expands significantly again, it indicates that the market still needs to undergo a more thorough turnover of chips.

On October 12, Huawei held a Kirin chip technology exchange meeting in Shanghai, marking the first chip-level technical communication meeting in six years, and systematically introduced the mass production progress of logic folding. Xu Songyu, head of the semiconductor business wireless terminal chip product management department, introduced that the Kirin chip has entered the testing phase in 2027, and the test results meet expectations; since 2023, the cumulative shipment of terminal products based on the Kirin chip has exceeded 100 million.The Kirin 9050 series is the first Kirin chip built on logic folding technology. Xu Songyu explained that logic folding is not simply stacking multiple chips, but rather a systematic design from a three-dimensional perspective at the beginning of the design, treating multiple dies as a complete chip for collaborative design. This series features over 50 million hybrid bonds, with effective signal interconnections exceeding 5 million, and a transistor density increase of 53.5%. The CPU large core efficiency of the Kirin 9050 Pro has improved by 41%, and the NPU computing power has increased by 140%; the current hybrid bonding pitch is 1.5 microns, and Huawei plans to further reduce it to 1 micron by 2027.The architecture of the Kirin 9050 Pro announced at the meeting includes the new generation Lingxi CPU, Maliang GPU, and Da Vinci architecture NPU, among others. This series is aimed at Mobile Agent, adopting a collaborative architecture of a large brain and a small brain on the edge, supporting the operation of a 30B MoE large model on the edge. The new generation Lingxi CPU features a 9-core 16-thread design, with a 23% improvement in multi-core performance, and the new generation Maliang GPU has a 40% performance increase.

Financial Associated Press reported on October 12, citing market research firm Counterpoint Research, that the ongoing construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to squeeze the supply of storage chips, putting pressure on costs and supply in consumer electronics. Preliminary data shows that global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 are expected to decline by 20% year-on-year, reaching the lowest level for the same period since 2012. The storage chip crisis has impacted the smartphone market for the second consecutive quarter, with rising chip costs increasing the overall bill of materials, leading manufacturers to raise retail prices. Since 2026, global smartphone retail prices have cumulatively increased by about 20%.Samsung remains the global leader, with its market share rising to 23% in the third quarter, although shipments declined by 3% year-on-year, marking the largest share increase among major manufacturers. Apple's share rose to 22%, marking its first time surpassing 20% in the third quarter, but shipments declined year-on-year. The absence of the base model iPhone 18 this year resulted in a lower channel distribution scale in the first month of new product launches compared to the previous year's iPhone 17 series. The iPhone 18 Pro series performed better than its predecessor in China and India.Xiaomi's shipments in the third quarter declined by over 30% year-on-year, with its market share dropping to 10%. Both OPPO and vivo saw their shipments decline by over 20% year-on-year, with shares falling to 9% and 8%, respectively. Counterpoint senior analyst Shilpi Jain stated that consumers are holding onto their existing devices for longer and are considering more refurbished devices. Counterpoint indicated that global smartphone shipments are unlikely to see a significant recovery before improvements in storage chip costs and supply.

Market news reports that Microsoft (MSFT.O) is preparing to deploy several gigawatts of chips in data centers.

Cryptocurrency analyst Darkfost stated that currently, above the price level of approximately $83,000, 53% of the invested capital is concentrated. This means that if Bitcoin is purchased at this level, the holding cost will be better than that of more than half of the investors.The range of $84,000 to $85,000 is the largest chip distribution cluster, and many investors react at this critical level, so this range is clearly the core resistance that Bitcoin must break through. Looking below, the range of $79,000 to $77,000 may become a support level. If the price cannot effectively break through $84,000-$85,000, the market may first retest this support area; however, once it stabilizes above the densely concentrated chip area, it means that the cost pressure for most holders has been digested, and the subsequent upward resistance will be significantly reduced.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Broadcom (AVGO.O) is customizing AI chips for OpenAI and is seeking over $50 billion in financing.

Microsoft executives stated that the RTX Spark device equipped with NVIDIA chips is faster than Apple's fastest chips in generating images.

SpaceX's stock price fell by 1.5%, with reports stating that the company is seeking $40 billion in financing to purchase Nvidia chips.

According to the Financial Times, SpaceX plans to raise $40 billion through Apollo-led financing to procure Nvidia chips.

Broadcom (AVGO.O) raised $60 billion to supply chips for Anthropic.

According to the Financial Times, Amazon (AMZN.O) is seeking to sell $8 billion worth of Nvidia (NVDA.O) chips to investors.

Market news reports that TSMC is considering building a multi-billion dollar campus in Texas, USA, to produce more artificial intelligence chips.

Coreweave stated that, from the customer's perspective, NVIDIA chips are currently the best choice.

Reuters quoted The Information's report stating that the Chinese government has signaled that it may allow some domestic companies, such as ByteDance and Alibaba, to purchase chips from Nvidia designed for high-end professional computers. The Information cited two informed sources saying that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently requested companies, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to report their plans to purchase Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 chips and informed some companies that the government intends to approve these purchases.Some industry executives expect that the RTX PRO 5500 could bypass U.S. export restrictions. Reuters stated that it could not immediately verify the above report. A spokesperson for Nvidia responded that U.S. companies are still subject to outdated U.S. export controls as well as China's import restrictions on the U.S., with the relevant export controls covering gaming products released nearly five years ago. Alibaba and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Reuters was also unable to reach the Chinese government for comment.

During an exclusive interview with China Central Television's finance program, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that China's AI large models are overall outstanding. He mentioned that, under limited computing power, the output per unit of computing power of Chinese models is already close to the world's top level.Musk assessed that China will solve the computing power bottleneck faster than most people expect. He roughly estimated that in the next 2 to 3 years, China could bridge the computing power gap relying on lithography technology and chip manufacturing capabilities.

Market news reports that Firmus, supported by Nvidia, is seeking $10 billion in financing to develop artificial intelligence chips.

Recently, the market has reported that Apple is developing an enterprise-level AI server, possibly equipped with 2 to 4 unreleased M8 Ultra processors. The target customers include AI developers, large enterprises, and government agencies, primarily for AI inference. This edge data center may utilize NVLink. Both Apple and NVIDIA have not responded.The supply chain believes that Apple has entered this related business because the Mac series is widely used as personal AI workstations, with Mac revenue growing nearly 30% in the last quarter. Apple is purchasing a large number of NVIDIA chips and Google TPUs for its own AI data center and is rumored to be collaborating with Broadcom to develop its own AI chips. Qualcomm's Dragonfly product line includes a complete cabinet solution for edge AI inference.There are reports that Xiaomi is laying out an edge AI cabinet route, having previously announced a personalized AI workstation concept product called AI Cube, which internally features three self-developed chips: Xuan Ring O3, O100, and D100. The supply chain has also indicated that TSMC plays a key role in advanced processes or advanced packaging.