China's Residential Subscriber Base Will Triple by 2010 -- "Driven by explosive growth in China, the number of homes using broadband Internet services in the Asia-Pacific region will grow from 61 million today to 176 million by 2010, according to a new Strategy Analytics forecast, Residential Broadband Internet Service in the Asia-Pacific Region: Market Outlook & Analysis. The firm predicts that although China trails other Asian markets in broadband adoption today, the immense size of the Chinese consumer market will make it a key driver for broadband growth in the region. By 2010, the Chinese market will account for 64 percent of all residential broadband users in the region, up from less than 40 percent today. The Asia-Pacific region also includes countries that already lead the world in broadband adoption. 77 percent of homes in South Korea use broadband today, while Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all boast penetration rates of 50 percent or more. In these mature markets, service providers will need to use a combination of higher access speeds, lower prices and rich media content to sustain growth over the next five years."
Few technology sectors sit as close to the center of gravity in today's artificial intelligence (AI) economy as semiconductor manufacturing. Every AI chip that trains a frontier model, every GPU that powers a data center inference workload, and every power management IC that keeps hyperscaler facilities running traces its origins back to the global Foundry ecosystem. IDC's latest market study throws that reality into sharp relief, projecting that the broadly defined Foundry 2.0 market will surpass $360 billion in 2026, a 17 percent year-over-year gain that would have seemed optimistic even two years ago. For anyone advising boards or investment committees on technology and AI infrastructure strategy, this growth trajectory demands careful consideration. Foundry 2.0 Market Development The umbrella term covers four distinct verticals: pure-play foundry, non-memory integrated device manufacturer (IDM) production, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT), and photomask fab...