According to Point Topic, " World broadband lines reached 164m as of 31 March 2005, an increase of 52m lines since March 2004 last year - with 28m lines added in the last 6 months alone. The USA is still the world's largest broadband country with 36.5m lines, and China remains in second place with 28.3m lines. The UK is leading growth in the 'G7 Rankings' achieving a 16.5 percent increase in lines since end-2004, and adding over 1m lines in the process. France was the only other G7 country passing 10 percent growth in the quarter - achieving 13.5 percent growth and adding an equally impressive 913,000 lines in the quarter. 'Top 10' growth is dominated by Eastern Europe and a mixture of Latin American and Asia Pacific countries. Turkey led the rankings overall, achieving 37 percent growth in the quarter, adding 179,000 lines. Poland led the Eastern European countries, achieving 24 percent growth and becoming the first Eastern European country to pass 1m lines. Australia continued to impress, achieving 18 percent growth to reach 1.8m lines in the quarter. In South Korea, the broadband market continues its path to saturation, having achieved only 1.4 percent growth in the quarter. Other countries, especially the established 'early adopters' such Taiwan and even Japan are showing modest growth - less than 5 percent in the quarter."
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...