Electronics Supply Chain Weekly Digest 9-18-26.
DATAPOINTS OF THE WEEK: The EU has reportedly asked China to voluntarily restrict hybrid car exports to around 15% of the EU market as part of efforts to prevent a trade war, according to the Financial Times.
Brussels has also reportedly asked Beijing to limit exports of other products including chemicals while seeking increased Chinese purchases of European goods, with the EU’s goods trade deficit with China hitting $413.4B last year.
Global datacenter power demand capacity will reach 161GW in 2026, up roughly 31% Y/Y from 122.9GW in 2025, with AI servers accounting for 33.4% of total demand and potentially exceeding 40% in 2027, according to TrendForce. Supply is not keeping pace, with a projected 268GW gap between the 490.7GW of demand and 222.6GW of available grid capacity by 2030, including a US shortfall surpassing 170GW.
Headlines:
Auto/Transportation
- BYD scouts existing European car plants to buy and refurbish, targeting four sites long-term ahead of expected EU local-content rules, according to Reuters and Bloomberg
- BYD announces plans to build heavy-duty trucks locally in Europe to sidestep potential EU tariffs on Chinese electric trucks
- GAC announces plans to acquire part of FAW’s stake in reported Toyota JV as Toyota reportedly consolidates China operations
- GM announces diesel-powered redesign of Silverado and Sierra, diverging from rivals’ hybrid route
- Lucid announces Bolt partnership to deploy 25K autonomous EVs across Europe on Nvidia Hyperion architecture, Reuters reported
- US new-vehicle affordability slipped in August as higher prices outweighed lower rates and income gains, according to Cox Automotive
- Waymo, GO, and Nihon Kotsu announce plans to launch Japan’s first fully autonomous taxi service in Tokyo in 2027
- XPeng reportedly plans to license its EV tech stack to foreign automakers beyond VW, says Reuters
Datacenter
- AI leaders call to slow development, stoking capex-slowdown fears, per Reuters
- County in Virginia, US advances 12-month pause on new datacenter and substation applications, according to Bloomberg
- Nebius announces second AI cloud price hike in three months amid surging demand
Industrial
- Boeing announces 737 MAX and 787 ramps are taking longer than expected
- Boston Dynamics IPO reportedly unlikely in 2027 as Atlas robots remain undeployed at scale and the unit is still unprofitable, per Reuters
- Toyota estimates factory automation could cost $6.4B annually from 2028 as it targets 400K robots across group and suppliers
Semiconductors
- AMD reportedly plans 10% price hike on GPUs, AI accelerators, and chipsets in 4Q26 as TSMC wafer costs rise, according to TrendForce
- Apple reportedly weighs 2029 enterprise server return built around M8 Ultra chips and Nvidia NVLink Fusion, Information reported
- Applied Materials announces $5B India investment over next decade to expand research, supply chain, and workforce
- Japan and US reportedly discussing GlobalFoundries logic chip fab as part of $550B investment pact, Nikkei reported
- Huawei introduces 11 AI chips including next-gen Ascend accelerators and UnifiedBus interconnect to offer alternatives to Nvidia
- Infineon announces $1.12B sale of NOR Flash and F-RAM business to Winbond
- Meta targets 1H27 deployment of MTIA 450 AI chip built with Broadcom and TSMC, per Bloomberg and TrendForce
- Micron Taiwan union threatens strike vote unless profit-sharing system is agreed by September 21
- MuRata announces discontinuation of selected MLCC part numbers across nine series with final orders due March 2028, per SemiMedia
- SK Hynix’s Solidigm reportedly weighing US NAND fab with upstate New York as leading site, according to Reuters
- SK Hynix reportedly in talks with Intel to manufacture memory chips in the US for the first time, Reuters reported
- SMIC reportedly advancing backside power delivery for N7/N5 nodes as AMEC’s ALD tool clears validation, as reported by TrendForce
Consumer/Other
- Meta reportedly plans camera-free Luna smart glasses for Fall launch, according to Information
