“this is not solely a demand and an AI buildout and a chip demand from Wall Street or from the US. This is all around the world.” The host added that “the scramble for those hot stocks is more around in Asia certainly than it is on Wall Street itself.”
Since the start of 2026, Tesla Inc., Apple Inc. and a dozen other major corporations have signaled that the shortage of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory - the fundamental building block of almost all technology - will constrain production. Cook warned it will compress iPhone margins. Micron Technology Inc. called the bottleneck "unprecedented." Musk got to the intractable nature o f the problem when he declared Tesla is going to have to build its own memory fabrication plant.
Advaithi didn't set out to ride the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. After becoming CEO of Flex (formerly known as Flextronics) in 2019, she zeroed in on the contract manufacturing company's power-focused business, which makes components that manage, regulate, and distribute power for advanced semiconductors and systems. Advaithi understood that business segment well from her years working at Eaton, the power management company.
Taiwan has become the world's biggest importer of Russian naphtha, a petroleum derivative used to make chemicals needed for the semiconductor industry, despite the fact that it has joined other sanctions against Russia and considers itself an ally of Ukraine. In the first half of 2025, Taiwan imported $1.3bn worth of Russian naphtha, and average monthly imports reached a level nearly six times higher than the 2022 average, according to a report published on Wednesday.
China is moving to dominate the global market for polysilicon, a key material used in chips, by flooding the industry with cheap, subsidised product to drive producers in other countries out of business. This is according to a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank based in Washington D.C. It warns that Beijing is providing "significant support" to its own polysilicon industry in an effort to establish loca businesses as the dominant global suppliers.
