Jensen Huang arrived in Taiwan on May 23 for an extended stay of more than ten days, with his COMPUTEX 2026 keynote scheduled for June 2 and confidential meetings with supply chain partners and TSMC senior executives running in parallel. At Nvidia’s AI Factory MGX Ecosystem Showcase in Taipei on May 29, Huang told assembled partners that Nvidia will double its Vera Rubin capacity in 2026 — addressing the room with the words: “You’re so rich now.” The showcase brought together TSMC, OSAT players, thermal and power suppliers, ODMs, motherboard makers, server vendors, and industrial computer companies, reflecting how AI servers now require full-stack system integration across power delivery, signal integrity, advanced packaging, memory, and networking.

AMD simultaneously announced over $10 billion in Taiwan ecosystem investment focused on advanced packaging and EPYC capacity expansion, benefiting ASE, Powertech, and Unimicron. Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, built on TSMC advanced processes with CoWoS-L packaging, involves approximately 150 Taiwanese partners. Following Taiwan, Huang is expected to travel directly to Korea for meetings with conglomerate leadership — a strategy to simultaneously lock AI infrastructure capacity across Taiwan foundries and Korean memory. The Korea visit is widely expected to produce HBM allocation announcements for the Vera Rubin production cycle.

Names: NVDA · TSM / 2330.TW · AMD · MU · SK Hynix 000660.KS · LITE · AAOI · COHR · ASE Technology 3711.TW

At a semiconductor symposium in Shanghai on May 25, Huawei announced its Tau Scaling Law — a chip-stacking architecture called LogicFolding targeting transistor density equivalent to a 1.4-nanometre process by 2031, without EUV lithography. China’s most advanced proven chipmaking capability today sits at around 7 nanometres. Huawei’s Kirin chip has already achieved a 53.5% transistor density increase to 238 million transistors per square millimetre, comparable to early 3nm chips. The company has mass-produced 381 Tau-based chips across smartphones, AI, automotive, and infrastructure over six years.

Jensen Huang, speaking to reporters in Taipei on May 28, called it “a breakthrough for Huawei” but said it poses “no threat to TSMC,” noting that chip-stacking is a decade-old TSMC capability. Huawei’s rotating chairman Xu Zhijun simultaneously thanked US export controls at a public conference: “If the United States hadn’t forced our country, we wouldn’t have done this.” Separately, Huang acknowledged that Nvidia has “largely conceded” China’s AI chip market to Huawei — the most direct public admission of competitive reality in the world’s second-largest AI market.

Names: NVDA · ASML · AMAT · TSM · SMIC 0981.HK · Alibaba 9988.HK

Samsung Electronics’ 2026 wage and bonus agreement passed a union vote with 73.7% support from 62,616 members on a 95.5% turnout. The deal creates a special bonus pool equivalent to 10.5% of semiconductor operating profit directed to Device Solutions division employees, with memory chip workers receiving bonuses of approximately $416,000 this year. The agreement averted what would have been the largest strike in Samsung’s history — 48,000 workers across 18 days — at a moment when the global HBM market is already acutely constrained by AI data centre demand. Samsung shares had rallied more than 6% on the original strike suspension news.

Names: Samsung 005930.KS · SK Hynix 000660.KS · MU · TSM

Lumentum (LITE) fell 14.7% over ten trading sessions, closing Friday at $854.96 against a 52-week high of $1,085.68, despite strong underlying fundamentals — Q4 fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of $960 million to $1.01 billion, a 240,000 square foot indium phosphide manufacturing facility under construction in North Carolina with Nvidia as a confirmed customer, and imminent inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 and S&P Global 1200. Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) similarly pulled back from its all-time high of $233.67 on May 13. At the same time, Nebius Group (NBIS) surged to $229.50 after Situational Awareness LP — the AI-focused fund of former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner — disclosed a significant passive stake. Nebius reported Q1 2026 revenue of $399 million, up 684% year over year, backed by a $17 billion multiyear Microsoft compute contract and a gigawatt-scale AI factory under construction in Missouri.

Names: LITE · AAOI · COHR · NBIS · ALAB · CRWV CoreWeave

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) fell sharply on May 29 after a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket test failure raised launch delay fears for a portion of its planned BlueBird constellation. The stock, which had been a standout performer in the satellite communications space year-to-date on the back of its direct-to-device network ambitions, saw meaningful intraday volatility before recovering partially into the close. The company confirmed that BlueBirds 8, 9, and 10 have arrived at Cape Canaveral ahead of a separate Falcon 9 launch scheduled for mid-June — providing some reassurance that the Blue Origin incident does not delay the entire programme. Q1 revenue of $7.2 million missed consensus by approximately 60%, with a net loss of $191 million. Full-year 2026 revenue guidance stands at $150–200 million. ASTS currently holds 60 mobile network operator partnerships covering 3 billion potential subscribers, and has flagged optionality around Golden Dome defence contracts, though none are yet formalised.

The Blue Origin New Glenn failure is a setback for the broader commercial launch ecosystem, not just ASTS. It concentrates launch dependency back onto Falcon 9 — and by extension, SpaceX — at a moment when the SPCX IPO is approaching and competitive dynamics in the launch market are under close scrutiny. For ASTS specifically, each BlueBird launch represents both technical validation and investor confidence management: the company’s revenue inflection is entirely contingent on successful deployment and activation of its commercial constellation.

Names: ASTS · RKLB · LUNR · PL Planet Labs · RDW Redwire

Thailand’s Board of Investment approved six major projects worth approximately $29 billion in early May, led by TikTok System (Thailand) and a Gulf-Singtel-AIS joint venture delivering a combined 120MW across Rayong and Samut Prakan, alongside True IDC (CP Group) facilities adding 223 megawatts. Microsoft confirmed its Thailand cloud region will be hosted through True IDC, part of its $1 billion Thailand infrastructure commitment. Thailand’s BOI also revived previously stalled projects worth $9.2 billion that had been delayed by power access and industrial land constraints — both now being resolved through dedicated power agreements.

Vietnam enacted Southeast Asia’s first comprehensive AI law in December 2025, taking phased effect from March 2026. Modelled on the EU AI Act with a risk-based approach, it prohibits AI-generated deepfakes and requires human oversight of AI decisions with societal impact. A Personal Data Protection Law effective January 2026 mandates domestic storage of Vietnamese user data, with penalties of up to 5% of annual revenue — directly accelerating local data centre demand. Vietnam’s data centre market, valued at $1.04 billion in 2025, is projected at $3.18 billion by 2031.

Names: VRT Vertiv · ETN Eaton · SU.PA Schneider Electric · MSFT (Thailand anchor) · GLP Group (regional operator)

Iranian state media reported Wednesday that Iran is committed to restoring commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-conflict levels within one month. WTI crude fell 5.55% to $88.68 — the sharpest single-session decline in weeks. The US-Iran conflict, ongoing since late February, has been a persistent upward driver of US headline PCE inflation. Dallas Fed analysis estimated that a single-quarter Hormuz closure raises US headline PCE by 0.6 percentage points and core PCE by 0.2 percentage points. April PCE data, Q1 GDP revision, and Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday June 6 are collectively the last significant macro inputs before the June 16–17 FOMC — the first under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

Energy is a direct input cost for AI infrastructure. Data centre power consumption, liquid cooling energy requirements, and the manufacturing energy intensity of advanced semiconductor fabs all carry sensitivity to sustained energy price levels. A credible Hormuz reopening that moves WTI toward $80 removes one of the more meaningful upward cost pressures across the physical AI infrastructure layer.

Names: XOM · CVX · OXY · XLF · TLT · VRT Vertiv (power cost sensitivity)

The week opens with the most consequential AI supply chain event on the calendar — Jensen Huang’s COMPUTEX keynote on Monday June 2 — and closes with the most consequential macro event — May Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday June 6. The bracket matters: if COMPUTEX delivers bullish Vera Rubin capacity and production timeline disclosures, and NFP prints soft enough to keep September rate cut expectations alive, the conditions exist for the AI infrastructure complex to retest its recent highs. The reverse combination — muted COMPUTEX disclosures and a hot NFP — would apply simultaneous fundamental and macro pressure to growth and AI names.

The week also carries the shadow of SpaceX SPCX pricing (June 11) and debut (June 12). While SPCX is not this week’s event, positioning ahead of the largest IPO in history will begin affecting flows across the space and AI infrastructure complex from mid-week. Funds managing capacity constraints will begin trimming satellite and space-adjacent pure-plays to prepare allocation room for SPCX.