SMIC says rushed AI chip capacity could end up idleBloombergChina’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. People look at semiconductor products at the World Semiconductor Conference and Expo in Nanjing, China, on June 20 last year. China’s leading AI developers, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), are also investing heavily in AI infrastructure equipped with both Nvidia chips and domestically produced alternatives. The surge in spending has also triggered a shortage of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a critical high-end component that enables advanced AI computing. The tight supply of HBM could persist for years, as new capacity takes time to build and qualify, Zhao said.

Source: Taipei Times February 11, 2026 17:14 UTC