TrendForce stated that the two major wafer foundries, TSMC and Samsung Electronics, had increased prices for the most-traded advanced 5/4nm processes used for AI chips. At TSMC, capacity at the 5/4nm, 3nm, and 2nm periods will remain fully utilized, and toll processing prices for these processes have been increased across the board; meanwhile, order volumes for Samsung Foundry's 5/4nm processes also increased significantly, prompting it to issue price hike notices to clients in Q4 2025.

On the evening of March 18, 2026, at Chery Automobile Battery Night 2026 in Wuhu, Anhui, Chery unveiled its Rhino all-solid-state battery technology. It had completed the development and pilot production of a 60Ah, 400Wh/kg all-solid-state battery cell and was advancing toward an ultra-high energy density of 600Wh/kg.

Solid-state batteries were a hot topic at the 2026 Two Sessions, where delegates noted that the industry is at a critical inflection point, moving from “samples” to “products.”

Driven by robust demand for AI, the price hikes in the PCB circuit board industry chain continue. According to reports, Japanese semiconductor material giant Resonac has raised the prices of CCL copper clad laminate and adhesive films by 30% starting from March 1. The industry expects that Resonac's price increase will be passed on to high-end manufacturing processes such as MLCC, HDI boards, IC substrates, and high-frequency high-speed PCBs. Moreover, the PCB sector may see a super catalyst – Nvidia's LPU inference chip. The market believes that with the implementation and rapid growth of AI applications, the market for specialized AI inference chips will expand rapidly, bringing about a significant impact on the PCB industry including increased volume and prices, process upgrades, material innovations, and higher concentration. This will enhance the value and importance of PCBs in AI chips, opening up new market size opportunities for the PCB industry.

Recently, Guansheng disclosed that its solid-liquid hybrid battery electrolyte membrane employs a self-developed polymer solid-state electrolyte membrane. Furthermore, the company's technical focus in the solid-state battery field is primarily on polymer-based solid-liquid hybrid batteries, with a key emphasis on industrial and commercial energy storage applications. This approach offers advantages such as lower costs, high safety, and relatively mature manufacturing processes, making it suitable for mass production. Simultaneously, Guansheng also possesses technical reserves for quasi-solid-state ternary lithium batteries, with its core process involving the use of ultraviolet light cross-linking polymerization technology to achieve in-situ curing of the electrolyte membrane.

This week (January 30 to February 5, 2026), the scaling of Tesla’s dry electrode process represented a revolutionary breakthrough in manufacturing, while Light-Year Engine’s “launch-to-production” approach marked a bold declaration on the product front. Both point to the core challenges of industrialisation —engineering and cost.