$MU $SKHY $TSM Custom ASICs matter more every year, and this year's SEMICON Taiwan makes the case louder than usual. Reportedly, CSPs aren't just attending anymore, they're the ones driving spec direction. Custom = Not Interchangeable. SEMICON Taiwan 2026: Highlights Global exhibitors: over 1,300 companies, 4,300 booths, drawing 65 countries and over 100,000 professionals National pavilions surged 250%, with 18 countries setting up 220 booths Cross sector collaboration: first ever partnership with Taiwan High Speed Rail linking semiconductors and transportation infrastructure CSP giants converge, full chain vertical integration Downstream customers and cloud service providers (CSPs like Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, MediaTek, Foxconn) are driving spec direction Google's SVP of AI and Infrastructure, Amin Vahdat, delivers his first public keynote in Asia The semiconductor show and COMPUTEX's system side boundaries are increasingly merging, building an integrated ecosystem platform Startup momentum and capital access doubling 16 top startup teams featured, spanning advanced process, AI, silicon photonics, and test/measurement/quantum First time dedicated zones: "Chip Startup Stage" and "Innovation Investment Day" plus ecosystem partner events, accelerating commercialization and capital matching Frontier tech and new specialty zones debut AI advanced packaging: focus on 3DIC, CoWoS, FOPLP Silicon photonics (SiPh) and CPO: aligned with TSMC's production timeline, co packaged optics positioned as the core solution to CSP data center bandwidth and power walls Quantum technology zone Wafer smart manufacturing zone Sustainability and edge applications: SiC/GaN compound semiconductors and green process showcased

The real mining race is no longer just for ASICs. It is for power. Bitcoin miners used to be valued mainly by hashrate, fleet efficiency, and cost per terahash. That still matters. But the market is starting to price something deeper: access to electricity, grid interconnection, land, cooling, and flexible load infrastructure. 🟢 Network resilience Bitcoin does not need every miner to stay profitable forever. Hashrate can move. Difficulty can adjust. Blocks can slow, then normalize. The base layer keeps doing what it was designed to do. 🟡 Power reallocation The headlines call it an AI pivot. The data suggests something bigger. Public miners are not only chasing a new narrative. They are monetizing the scarce asset they already spent years acquiring: power access. AI data centers want it. Bitcoin miners already have it. 🔴 The new economics of a megawatt Hashrate is not disappearing, but it is becoming economically mobile. The same megawatt can mine Bitcoin, support AI or HPC, or sit in a demand-response programme, and miner behaviour will increasingly be shaped by power markets as much as Bitcoin markets. The operators who win are the ones who stack the most revenue onto each megawatt without diverting capital away from the hashrate they already run. The Signal Bitcoin mining is not breaking. It is being repriced. The canary is not warning that the network is weak. It is warning that the economics around the network have changed. The next mining cycle may not be won by whoever owns the most machines. It may be won by whoever controls the best power, and makes each megawatt earn the most while it runs.

CLSA Research says the AI chip shortage will last till 2030 with ASICs and GPUs undersupplied by 73% currently. > Small language models like Muse, Kimi K3 can drive broader AI adoption with Muse doing the best work. > 2030 estimate of 70-130GW of AI usage. Via @CNBC $NVDA $AMD $GOOGL $AMZN