Just a semi recap TLDR: - $GLW glass bridge per Morgan Stanley has potential, but hard to displace FAU (like FOCI) in short term - $SPCX Starlink Gen 3 is scaling to 100,000 units (10x prev gen) creating possible capacity constraints for suppliers of switches to CCL. - PCB supply shortages are projected to persist until 2028, and component shortages/price hikes are already forcing ODMs like Inventec to issue conservative H2 shipment - DeepSeek and Zhipu are developing custom ASICs to bypass $NVDA (kinda expected by now). - Anthropic has achieved a $30B ARR and is projected to hit >$1B in Q3 profit. Turns out these frontier labs are more profitable than people think. - US admin pressured $AAPL to source from $INTC, in exchange for tariff exception. Kinda pressuring alignment away from TSM. - $TSM plans a 30x expansion of its Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) capacity by 2028, growing from 500 to 25,000 wafers per month - Hanmi Semiconductor is entering the CoWoS packaging equipment market - $NVDA and NTT hosting a conference July 24th to discuss CPO strategies. - 5x general NAND flash price hike this year, market size $489B by next year triggered by RAG/inference. Samsung and SK Hynix make emergency fab investments, NAND equipment suppliers go brrrr. - Gas turbine bottleneck, 40% supply gap accompanied by staggering 5-year delivery cycles (mega-fabs need them for mass production). - AI probe card assembly has hit a severe bottleneck apparently. Which is attempted to by solved with things like Innovation Service's machines. - Nanya, 79.5% gross margins reported, memory go brr. 4x capex for capacity/advanced packaging. - CXMT's STAR Market IPO on July 16, so should bring a lot of attention to memory players in that supply chain. - KYEC $1.4B investment into US for $TSM Arizona output test facilities. Lot of these players like $AMKR and others should go brr in 2028. - $INTC CEO warned last month that helium could hinder the manufacturing costs and delivery times of AI chips - 3D NAND word lines are shifting from Tungsten to Molybdenum starting at the 375-layer node - SambaNova secured JPM for AI inference and raised $1B at an $11B valuation. - HBM prices projections to double in 2027 as $NVDA Rubin platform drives demand. - $MU provides $500 million in funding to support GlobalWafers' US manufacturing capacity - $META 'Iris' will enter mass production in September via $AVGO and TSMC and Meta aims to double computing power to 14GW by 2027. - Largan Precision has secured its first CPO FAU order, mass production slated for middle of next year (kinda indication around Foci and others). - Samsung and SK Hynix have delayed the implementation of hybrid bonding packaging technology for HBM4 apparently - Memory costs (DRAM/NAND) have reached 60% of the BOM for sub-$400 smartphones, causing a severe volume contraction. - SK Hynix successfully rasied $26.5 billion through a Nasdaq ADR - $TSLA issued procurement guidelines requiring suppliers to reach weekly production of 1,000 units by September and double to 2,000-2,500 by year end for its 3rd gen Optimus robot. Apparently Alliance Technology and A-Link may be in this supply chain harmonic reducers and vision lenses? Kinda go through all this stuff every day, but don't wanna be a news reporter so just consolidated stuff I found interesting.

How is the US so far behind? Xinhua: China's output of humanoids are expected to hit 100,000+ this year. Even Morgan Stanley originally projected 14,000 for 2026... Really need Elon's $TSLA, $CCXI (Agility), Apptronik, and Figure to catchup. And for more US Gov. subsidies to pour into upstream supply chains + rare earths. Cause this disparity between US vs. China mass production is getting ridiculous... But it almost feels like the start of Russia/US Space race Sputnik Moment for robotics?