July 31, 2026 · 03:48 Uhr
In the Q2 earnings call, Samsung confirms that AI memory demand is so strong that customers are proactively signing multi-year purchase agreements for HBM – a structural signal for sustained HBM4/HBM4E capacity shortage. This strengthens Samsung's negotiating position against SK Hynix and solidifies pricing power across the entire AI memory segment.
The U.S. Department of Commerce signed Letters of Intent this week totaling $874 million in CHIPS Act funding – including $300 million for GlobalFoundries with 1% equity stake plus funds for Kepler and five additional semiconductor companies. This marks a new phase of active state participation in fabs and sets a precedent for U.S. industrial policy.
The EU has launched a tender for seven AI gigafactories, each producing at least 100,000 high-performance AI chips – funded through €10 billion in public funds as part of a €30 billion overall package. The initiative represents Europe's most direct response to U.S. and China subsidy strategies, but remains subject to ongoing EU budget negotiations.
A bipartisan Senate letter urges Apple to abandon plans to purchase CXMT memory chips, calling them 'shortsighted' – Micron counters with an announced $250 billion U.S. investment package as political leverage. The conflict reveals growing tension between U.S. corporations seeking to optimize global supply chains and national security interests.
IonQ completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of semiconductor foundry SkyWater Technology following FTC clearance on July 31 – a rare case where a quantum computing company acquires direct manufacturing capacity. This is a new development: while the acquisition was known, the actual closing occurred this week and marks quantum computing as a new player in foundry competition.
Greece has signed the first European-American gallium supply contract: METLEN will supply a U.S. technology company with the strategically critical raw material starting in 2027 – material that is embedded in every AI chip and refined by China to over 80%. The deal is part of a broader diversification strategy following China's gallium export restrictions.
The semiconductor industry is in a phase of acute geopolitical bifurcation: China's breakthrough in DUV lithography machines has already triggered considerable market turbulence, yet structural consolidation on the Western alliance side continues simultaneously – evident in CHIPS Act state participation, the EU gigafactory program, and new raw material diversification deals like the Greek-American gallium agreement. The sharpest immediate escalation line runs between Apple and the U.S. Congress over Chinese memory chips: should Apple source CXMT chips, it would politically destabilize U.S. export control regimes and undermine Micron's investment commitments. Strategically, this week shows that competition has expanded from pure chip production capacity to the entire supply chain – raw materials, manufacturing equipment, foundry ownership structures – making dependencies more complex and intervention points for state actors more numerous.
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