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ASML sales dip, expects drop in China demand
Semiconductor equipment company ASML saw a decline in sales and income last quarter, but has forecast 2026 total net sales will not be below 2025’s despite a likely fall in demand in China. Net sales were EU€7.52 billion (US$8.74 billion), down from €7.69 billion year-over-year and below LSEG estimates of $7.79 billion. Net income was $2.13 billion, falling from €2.29 billion but above estimates of $2.11 billion. “Our third-quarter total net sales of €7.5 billion and gross margin of 51.6% were in line with our guidance, reflecting a good quarter for ASML,” said ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet. Lithography chipmaking systems have developed positively as extreme ultraviolet lithography technologies are adopted, said Fouquet, and companies’ investments in artificial intelligence have remained strong. “On the other hand, we expect China customer demand, and therefore our China total net sales in 2026, to decline significantly compared to our very strong business there in 2024 and 2025.” The company projects a net sales increase of around 15% across 2025, and does not expect 2026’s sales to be below 2025’s. It predicts fourth quarter sales will be €9.2-9.8 billion. ASML will not be able to sell its most advanced systems i
Hardware
Macquarie sets record with A$40bn data centres sale
Macquarie Group has sold a data centre business to a consortium of investors for an enterprise value of US$40 billion (A$61.5 billion) in the largest global data centre transaction in history. Acting on behalf of two of its privately managed infrastructure funds and its co-investment partners, the Australian investment bank’s Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) unit sold Aligned Data Centers to a consortium of AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), MGX and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners. “The transaction implies an enterprise value of approximately $US40 billion, making it the largest to date for global data centres,” Macquarie said in a press release. Based in Dallas, Texas, Aligned is a leading provider of innovative, sustainable and adaptive data centre solutions supporting hyperscale and enterprise customers across North and South America. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. MAM made its initial investment in April 2018 via Macquarie Infrastructure Partners IV and acquired an additional stake in July 2020 via Macquarie Infrastructure Partners V. Since 2018, Aligned has expanded from two facilities in Dallas an
Hardware
AMD shares surge 38% on OpenAI chip deal
Wall Street tech giant AMD's market capitalisation jumped US$100 billion in a single session Monday after announcing a major chip supply deal with OpenAI, continuing the pattern of major tech stocks putting their hands in each other's pockets. Under the agreement, OpenAI will deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs starting in the second half of 2026, with the deployment scaling across multiple chip generations. AMD has issued OpenAI warrants for up to 160 million shares - around 10% of the company - that vest as deployment milestones are reached. "Our partnership with OpenAI is expected to deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD while accelerating OpenAI's AI infrastructure buildout," AMD CFO Jean Hu said. The deal positions the chipmaker as a core compute partner to OpenAI and helps the latter diversify from its single-vendor supply from Nvidia. Investors poured in as the news broke, and at one stage, AMD had risen a whopping 38% during a trade where AI tech stocks also rallied higher.AI's circular economy The deal follows a series of interconnected AI infrastructure agreements announced in recent weeks, with OpenAI committing roughly $1 trillion in infrastructure buildout spending across tech
Hardware
Applied projects $710m revenue hit from export curbs
The largest United States-based manufacturer of chip production machinery, Applied Materials, has forecast a US$710 million hit to its revenue from new restrictions on exports to China. A rule issued by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on 29 September expanded the U.S.’ export blacklist to include majority-owned subsidiaries of the companies on the list, with Chinese businesses set to be heavily affected. “Applied Materials, Inc. expects that the BIS Affiliates Rule will further restrict its ability to export certain products and provide certain parts and services to specific China-based customers without a license,” the company wrote. “Applied currently estimates that the impact of the BIS Affiliates Rule will reduce its net revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 by approximately $110 million. In addition, Applied currently expects that the impact of the BIS Affiliates Rule will reduce its net revenue for fiscal 2026 by approximately $600 million.” The Chinese market represented 35% of Applied’s revenue in the July quarter. Its August revenue projection for this quarter, which had assumed export licences would be restricted, was around $630 million below LSEG estimates. The BIS’ blacklist inclu
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Taiwan won't agree to US 50-50 chip production plan
Taiwan will not agree to the United States’ proposal to move large amounts of its semiconductor production to the U.S., Taiwan’s Vice Premier has said. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this week that the U.S. held discussions with Taiwan about manufacturing half of all chips intended for the American market in the U.S. “Our negotiating team has never made any commitment to a 50-50 split on chips,” said Taiwanese Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun. “Rest assured, we did not discuss this issue during this round of talks, nor would we agree to such conditions.” Cheng said Taiwan’s talks with the U.S. had centred on lowering U.S. tariffs on Taiwan and potential exemptions from stacking of tariff rates. Taiwanese goods currently face a 20% tariff rate. The U.S.’ goal is to manufacture around 40% of U.S. chip demand domestically by the end of President Donald Trump’s term in January 2029, Lutnick said. According to Lutnick, the U.S. is concerned about national security issues from Taiwan’s proximity to China. TSMC, Taiwan’s largest chipmaker, is reportedly able to deactivate its manufacturing machines if China attempts to invade Taiwan. TSMC has already pledged US$165 billion this year to increase production at

Hardware
Micron delivers massive Q4 revenue beat amid AI wave
Memory maker Micron Technology just smashed through Wall Street's quarterly earnings expectations, delivering Q4 sales of US$11.32 billion and $3.03 per share - a significant beat over analysts' $11.1 billion and $2.86 forecasts. The beat was largely driven by record sales through its data centre business. “Micron closed out a record-breaking fiscal year with exceptional Q4 performance, underscoring our leadership in technology, products, and operational execution,” Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. “In fiscal 2025, we achieved all-time highs across our data centre business and are entering fiscal 2026 with strong momentum and our most competitive portfolio to date," Mehrotra said. The storage giant has doubled down - earmarking forward guidance of $12.5 billion for the next quarter.Storage gold rushData centre takings more than doubled across the board this year for storage businesses. Every query, every AI model training session, every autonomous vehicle decision needs silicon - mountains of it. High-bandwidth storage has become the new digital gold, with Micron riding shotgun alongside Korean competitors Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, in what's shaping up to be the mother of all semicon
Hardware
Apple supplying new chips for its iPhone lineup
Apple’s newly-released iPhone Air includes new custom chips designed in-house for greater artificial intelligence capabilities, giving the company full control of its core chip architecture. Previous iPhone chips were made by Broadcom. Apple has been supplying chips for its products like the Apple Watch for nearly 10 years, and for the MacBook for almost five years. “With the most Apple-designed chips in an iPhone — the powerhouse A19 Pro, N1, and C1X — iPhone Air is the most power-efficient iPhone ever made,” Apple wrote. Apple’s A19 Pro chip features neural accelerators in each graphics processing unit core to give the device greater compute power for AI applications. The company’s AI system, known as Apple Intelligence, was introduced last year. “We are building the best on-device AI capability that anyone else has,” said Apple’s vice president of platform architecture Tim Millet. “Right now we are focused on making sure that these phones that we’re shipping today, or shipping soon, will be capable of all the important on-device AI workloads that are coming.” Apple is prioritising on-device AI through these new chips to ensure users’ privacy, according to Millet. Its N1 wireless chip will be included across
Hardware
How US export controls are changing global chip markets
Demand for advanced chips has surged as the artificial intelligence race heats up - and the United States’ restrictions on exporting semiconductors to China now stand to change both countries' chip markets. Global semiconductor sales were at US$179.7 billion in 2025’s second quarter, up nearly 20% year-over-year. Both the Asia Pacific and the Americas saw strong sales increases. While the U.S. has worked to stop some chipmakers from exporting or manufacturing in China, leading U.S. firms like Nvidia have tried to strike deals to sell previously banned chips for the Chinese market. However, China’s domestic chipmakers have stepped up their manufacturing, and the Chinese government has urged tech companies not to buy from the U.S.The US’ restrictionsThe U.S. government has aimed to restrict exports of advanced semiconductors to China since 2018, due to national security concerns around China gaining access to advanced chip and computing technology. “U.S. actions have focused on sustaining the lead in advanced chips, and related computing and AI applications, and slowing China's development of competitive capabilities, including in defense and intelligence,” according to an August Congressional Research Service report. Un
Hardware
China bans its tech companies from buying Nvidia chips
China has reportedly banned technology companies like Alibaba and ByteDance from purchasing Nvidia’s chips, as China aims to support domestic chip production amid United States export controls. The country’s Cyberspace Administration told China’s major technology companies to cancel their orders and halt testing of Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chip, per the Financial Times. “We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that.” Nvidia will “continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish, and we’re of course going to continue to support the U.S. government as they all sort through these geopolitical policies,” said Huang. Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D and H20 chips were designed for the Chinese market, meeting United States export controls on high-powered chips to China. A ban on exporting the H20 to China was lifted in July, with Nvidia agreeing to pay 15% of its Chinese revenue to the U.S. government. The RTX Pro 6000D was unveiled that month. While Chinese regulators have discouraged Chi