Zero One Daily Intelligence Brief — July 14, 2026

SK Hynix's record selloff meets TSMC's record half as Jensen Huang rejects an AI peak

Top Market Signals

SK Hynix leads memory's record Seoul selloff

SK Hynix (000660 KS) fell 15.4% in Seoul on 13 July, its largest single-day drop on record, as the KOSPI sank 9% and broke below 7,000 for the first time in two months; the record US listing a week earlier did nothing to slow the selling at home.

The drop landed in a market that was already falling. Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) fell 10.7% the same session, and both stocks now sit at least 30% below the record highs they set in June. The KOSPI triggered its circuit-breaker for the seventh time this year, and SK Hynix's market value slipped back below US$1tn. Japan's market closed down 1.8% and China's ChiNext index fell 3.1%, so the move was regional, not company-specific.

Two forces sat behind it. The macro trigger was an oil spike after renewed Hormuz tension and rising expectations of a US Federal Reserve rate hike, which together revived fears that cheap financing for AI buildouts is ending. The stock-specific worry was positioning: SK Hynix raised more than US$26.5bn in its US depositary listing (priced at US$149, up 12.8% on day one), and NH Investment's Ryu Young-ho said the short-term good news was now priced in, leaving profit-taking to drive the session.

Underneath the price action, the demand data has not turned. Korea Investment & Securities flagged that 2Q26 operating profit may land about 8% below expectations, but its reason was mix: SK Hynix's revenue leans so heavily on HBM (high-bandwidth memory) that average selling prices have little room left to climb. The company has just begun mass shipments of 12-layer HBM4 to NVIDIA for the Vera Rubin platform, the first HBM4 qualified as final spec, and its chief executive repeated that the memory shortage runs into 2030. The selloff is about sentiment and positioning, not a drop in demand.

Linked stocks: 000660 KS, 005930 KS, MU US

Sources: 獲利了結、HBM4出貨不如預期 SK海力士股價狂瀉, 韓股大怒神 三星、海力士已回檔3成, SK海力士12層HBM4量產出貨NVIDIA

TSMC posts a record first half before Thursday's call

TSMC (2330 TT) reported June revenue of NT$442.68bn, up 67.9% YoY and 6.2% MoM, a second straight monthly record that pushed 2Q26 revenue to NT$1.27tn and first-half revenue above NT$2tn for the first time.

2Q26 revenue of NT$1,270.38bn rose 36% YoY and 12% QoQ, and landed near the top of the company's own guidance. In April TSMC guided US$39.0bn to US$40.2bn at an assumed NT$31.7 per US dollar, which works out to about NT$1,236bn to NT$1,274bn; the reported NT$1,270.38bn sits at the high end. The US dollar figure will be confirmed at the 16 July earnings release.

The strength is advanced-node and advanced-packaging demand. AI accelerators, ASICs and high-performance computing kept 3nm and 4nm capacity full, while CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) packaging stayed sold out. Having already raised advanced-node prices, TSMC has begun notifying IC-design customers of mature-node increases effective next January, its first mature-node hike in more than three years.

The 16 July earnings release is the next marker. Management is expected to revisit its January guide of near-30% full-year US dollar revenue growth and its capex plan, and to update progress on 2nm and advanced-packaging expansion. First-half revenue rose 35.6% YoY, so a further guidance raise looks more like a question of size than direction.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, NVDA US, AAPL US

Sources: 雙創新高！台積電6月營收4426億 Q2營收逼近財測高標, 台積6月營收好威寫三大驚奇 上半年首度飛越2兆元大關

Jensen Huang rebuts NVIDIA's delay and peak talk

NVIDIA (NVDA US) chief executive Jensen Huang told a closed-door Morgan Stanley meeting that quarterly revenue is approaching US$100bn and still accelerating, and directly denied reports that the next-generation Rubin Ultra platform would slip to 2028.

Our 6 July Blade flagged the market chatter that NVIDIA's next AI rack had slipped a year; Huang's message was the opposite. Speaking alongside finance chief Colette Kress at a session run like an earnings call, he said the growth cycle has not peaked, set a US$20bn CPU revenue goal for this year, and said NVIDIA had won a large cloud service provider (CSP) that historically ran mostly on ASIC silicon, with NVIDIA GPUs now roughly half that customer's compute.

Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore described the meeting as positive and framed three growth lanes: AI labs, traditional CSPs, and NeoCloud or sovereign-AI buyers. He noted that even as power, land and construction speed start to cap traditional cloud buildouts, NVIDIA can widen shipments into CPUs and networking rather than GPUs alone.

The read-through runs straight to Taiwan. Vera Rubin is in mass production at TSMC now, with Rubin Ultra due next year, and Huang's on-schedule message also eased worries about delays to 800VDC power and co-packaged optics (CPO). Foxconn (2317 TT), Quanta (2382 TT) and Wistron (3231 TT), which assemble NVIDIA AI servers for the CSPs, are the direct beneficiaries.

Linked stocks: NVDA US, 2382 TT, 2330 TT

Sources: 黃仁勳：輝達還在加速成長 近期獲 CSP 大單, 輝達執行長黃仁勳打臉傳聞 喊新平台不遲到

Samsung foundry lands Tesla's AI5 on 2nm

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) has taped out Tesla's next-generation AI5 chip and will make it on its latest 2nm process at the Taylor, Texas fab, a Samsung Foundry engineer confirmed, a rare leading-edge win for a foundry unit that has struggled to fill capacity.

A Samsung Foundry principal engineer disclosed the tape-out in a LinkedIn post, saying the chip will be built at Taylor and integrated into Tesla's newest products. Tesla is dual-sourcing AI5 across TSMC and Samsung; the TSMC version taped out several months earlier, so this closes part of that gap. Taiwanese trade press reports Samsung foundry utilization improving as 4nm and 5nm orders recover and the Taylor 2nm line moves toward production.

The chip is designed for high volume. The AI5 module pairs a compact accelerator die, around half a reticle, with 12 SK Hynix GDDR memory packages on an organic substrate, giving a 384-bit interface and up to 1.5TB/s of bandwidth. Musk has said AI5 could be among the most-produced chips ever, destined for Tesla vehicles, Optimus robots and Tesla data centers, which is why two foundries are making it.

For Samsung, the win matters strategically. Landing a high-volume US customer at 2nm, after reports it had also won Meta foundry business, gives its foundry arm the reference client it has lacked against TSMC, and gives Tesla a second leading-edge source outside Taiwan.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, TSLA US, 2330 TT

Sources: Tom's Hardware, 特斯拉AI5晶片 傳交三星試產

Intel commits €5bn to expand its Ireland fab

Intel (INTC US) will invest about €5bn (US$5.7bn) to expand its Leixlip campus in Ireland, scaling up Intel 3 production for its next-generation Xeon server processors, even as its shares fell 4.2% in a broad chip selloff.

The expansion of Fab34 targets data-center CPU capacity and Intel's contract foundry ambitions, according to multiple reports including the Irish Times and Wccftech. Intel 3 is the node behind its Xeon 6 and upcoming Diamond Rapids server chips, the products it needs to defend a data-center franchise where AMD has taken share.

The timing is notable against the backdrop. Washington has been pressing to move more advanced manufacturing onshore rather than leave it in Taiwan, Korea and Japan, and Intel is the centerpiece of that effort; the Ireland spend sits alongside its US fab and advanced-packaging plans. The stock still fell with the sector on 13 July, as the SK Hynix rout and the oil spike pulled Intel, AMD and Applied Materials down about 4% together.

Linked stocks: INTC US, AMD US

Sources: Google News, Google News

Samsung bets on glass to rival TSMC packaging

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) and Samsung Display are jointly developing a next-generation glass interposer, aiming for a prototype by the end of 2026 to compete directly with TSMC's (2330 TT) advanced-packaging platforms.

An interposer is the layer that routes high-speed signals between an AI processor and its substrate, and today it is usually made of silicon. Samsung's pitch, reported by Korea's TheElec, is that glass cuts reliance on expensive silicon wafers, supports large-panel production, and sits flatter with a lower thermal expansion coefficient, which reduces the warpage that silicon and organic materials suffer as chips get larger. That makes it a candidate substrate for the next wave of AI accelerators.

The work leans on display-industry know-how. Samsung Display, looking for growth beyond smartphone OLED, has set up a dedicated team and named glass-packaging advocate Cho Sung-chan to lead its research institute; its edge is depositing metal, patterning and etching fine circuits on glass, the skills needed to build the dozens of redistribution layers (RDL, the fine wiring that connects chip to substrate) an AI chip requires. The near-term hurdle is delamination and warpage when ABF (Ajinomoto build-up film) insulation is laminated onto glass, which Samsung is working through with materials suppliers.

The aim is bigger than a new material. Samsung plans to position the glass interposer as a next-generation platform against TSMC's CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) and CoPoS (chip-on-panel-on-substrate) packaging, and to fold it into a turnkey service that pairs its foundry with its own advanced packaging. It is outsourcing through-glass-via drilling and glass-substrate making to suppliers such as Soulbrain to protect its design data. Prototypes in 2026 would open a customer-qualification race that TSMC currently has largely to itself.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 2330 TT, 3711 TT

Sources: 三星電子與三星顯示器合作開發玻璃中介層，年底前推原型挑戰台積電先進封裝

先聲 First Word — Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Taiwan's listed companies post record June revenue

Taiwan's exchange-listed companies lifted combined June revenue to a record NT$5.84tn, up 46.9% YoY and a fourth straight monthly record, with 187 individual firms at all-time highs. Second-quarter revenue reached NT$16.77tn and first-half revenue NT$31.11tn, both records, and analysts now put 2Q26 listed-company net profit near NT$1.8tn, showing the AI supply-chain surge extends well beyond TSMC. (14 Jul 2026) Source: 上市櫃營收 三創新高

Alchip's June revenue jumps 84.6% on ASIC orders

Alchip Technologies (3661 TT) reported June revenue of NT$3.57bn, up 84.6% MoM, as its custom-ASIC order book converts into shipments. The print underlines how AI accelerator design wins are flowing through to Taiwan's ASIC houses even as memory names sell off. (14 Jul 2026) Source: 世芯-KY6月營收月增84.6%

Lite-On commits US$919m to a new Texas base

Lite-On Technology (2301 TT) will invest about US$919m to build a manufacturing and operations base in McKinney, Texas, spanning more than 650,000 square feet and creating over 600 jobs. The site targets North American AI-infrastructure and energy demand, deepening the US manufacturing build-out among Taiwan's power and server suppliers. (13 Jul 2026) Source: 光寶科斥資295億元於德州麥金尼設立營運製造基地