In week 37 (September 7-13), Huawei took first place in China's smartphone market with a 27% share on the launch of Mate XT 2 and Pura X View, as the overall market fell nearly 10%. Apple dropped to sixth despite the start of iPhone 18 Pro and first foldable iPhone sales.
L&T Semiconductor CEO Sandeep Kumar said at Semicon 2026 India that India needs hundreds of companies, not one, for a competitive semiconductor industry. He said the market has over 20,000 chip products and the path will take about 20 years.
Apple plans to launch Apple Pay in India next month in partnership with Axis Bank, the country's fourth-largest credit card issuer. Three sources familiar with the situation reported the plans.
Gartner forecasts global AI spending to reach $2.7 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% year-over-year. The main driver is AI data center construction, and by 2030 the AI services market will reach $1.2 trillion.
AWS and Salesforce expanded their partnership: AWS agents, starting with AWS DevOps Agent, will appear in Slack, and Agentforce will gain access to Amazon Bedrock models. Zero-copy integrations were also announced.
The Philippine Stock Exchange approved an IPO for the owner of GCash, the Philippines' largest mobile wallet, worth up to 92.3 billion pesos ($1.47 billion). This is the country's record listing.
South Korean battery makers LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI are booked with energy storage system (ESS) orders for two years ahead. Demand growth is driven by US restrictions and a slowdown in the Chinese market, shifting the balance of power in the ESS segment.
Samsung raised prices across the Galaxy S26 lineup in India by 20,000 rupees (~$209) from September 18, 2026, due to a global memory and storage shortage. The base Galaxy S26 now starts at 107,999 rupees, S26+ at 139,999, and S26 Ultra from 159,999 to 209,999 rupees.
SK Group transferred three vice chairmen from the holding company to SK hynix effective September 15, focusing resources on AI and semiconductors. The vice chairmen are interviewing about 250 company executives. The SK AI Summit has been moved to the first half of 2027 and will be tied to Nvidia GTC.
Shares of Chinese robotics component suppliers rose after reports that Tesla teams arrived in China to audit suppliers and place additional orders to increase production of the humanoid robot Optimus.
Samsung Electronics is expanding cooperation with Dutch chip startup Euclyd, which according to Digitimes has reached the test-chip stage at Samsung Foundry. This adds a manufacturing dimension to Samsung's recent investment in the two-year-old company.
SK On and L&F signed a three-year contract to supply LFP cathode materials for energy storage systems worth about 160 billion won ($115.8 million) from 2026 to 2028. SK On will convert 3 GWh of the 7 GWh capacity at its Sosan plant to ESS and start mass production in the first half of 2027.
India's state infrastructure financier approved loans of over 30 billion rupees ($313 million) each to at least four data centers, totaling more than $1.2 billion, as part of the country's push into the AI boom.
SAP CEO Christian Klein told Fortune that "the end of the keyboard is near," saying voice control and AI will replace most manual data entry in the company's systems within 2-3 years. He said the underlying technology is ready and the main challenge is implementation.
Taiwan's central bank said the success or failure of AI monetization will determine long-term economic benefits and the impact on financial markets. The regulator ties market stability to how quickly AI investments start generating profit.
OpenAI has begun preliminary talks with investors about a new private round that could value the company at $1.2 trillion or more. CEO Sam Altman previously said an IPO will not happen this year.
Chinese company PaXini reported cumulative funding of $596 million. It supplies products and datasets to companies in embodied AI, research institutes, and open-source communities.
XPeng intends to expand sales of its AI and automotive technologies beyond its partnership with Volkswagen, which holds a 4.99% stake. Sources do not name specific new partners or deal terms.
Apollo and SoftBank are in talks to raise a loan for Vision Fund 2. SoftBank has already invested $64.6 billion in OpenAI.
CATL maintains a dominant share in the EV battery market, creating a component shortage for Chinese automakers. The company is seeking new growth points in the electric truck segment, moving beyond China's shrinking passenger EV market.
BYD has started production at its first European plant in Hungary and will choose a site for a second by year-end, preferably in Spain or France. The company plans three assembly plants and one battery factory in Europe to avoid high EU tariffs on Chinese EVs.
Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT) reported strong demand for AI optics: capacity is almost fully utilized, with order visibility extending to 2027. The company is in talks with Corning on EBO and with TSMC on co-packaging, diversifying its AI optics bets.
Starting September 16, Apple included Apple TV and Apple Arcade subscriptions in iCloud+ plans in over 100 countries. In supported regions, standalone TV and Arcade subscriptions are no longer available, and users are being migrated to new plans. The US, Europe, and several other markets are not included.
Palantir Technologies hired Tom Watson, former deputy leader of the Labour Party, for a senior role in the UK. The company faces criticism that threatens its major contract with the NHS.
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said at the ALL IN conference in Montreal that the company does not plan to produce its own chips, unlike OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Mistral. Cohere is betting on being a 'sovereign' AI provider and is preparing a merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha.
On September 17, 2026, OpenAI reported elevated error rates across API models, affecting 12 platform components including Chat Completions, Responses, Sora and Login. An hour after the first notice, the company said it had applied a fix and was monitoring recovery.
OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, a company developing AI image processing technology GlassAI Neural ISP, for $300 million, according to WSJ. The startup was valued at $100 million a year ago.
OpenAI managing director George Osborne, at the ALL IN conference in Montreal, called Canada an 'obvious place' for the company's data centre, citing a stable jurisdiction and energy. No decision has been made yet; OpenAI previously signed Canada's framework agreement on data centre development.
OpenAI appointed Brian McCarthy from SpaceX's Cursor division as new head of global sales; he reports to recently hired Chief Revenue Officer Dali Rajic. The company also brought on two experienced salespeople from Snowflake, including a senior vice president.
Bridgewater managing director Greg Jensen said that growth in demand for AI infrastructure is largely already priced into markets. As a result, the fund holds a “very small position” in this bet and is looking for opportunities in other areas.