Zero One Daily Intelligence Brief — April 29, 2026

One Vera Rubin GPU Consumes 4,500 Phones’ Worth of Memory; Taiwan Chip Packagers Hike Capex Yet Again

Top Market Signals

ASE hikes LEAP forecast, raises capex yet again

ASE Technology Holding (3711 TT) raised its 2026 advanced packaging revenue target to above US$3.5bn, a roughly 10% upgrade implying +118% YoY growth, and lifted full-year capex by 21% in its second upward revision this year. CFO Joseph Tung told the analyst meeting that LEAP demand is running ahead of plan, with the segment now structured as roughly 75% packaging and 25% test, and that wafer-sort equipment will arrive through 4Q26 ahead of volume shipments in 2027. Estimated 2026 capex was raised from US$7.0bn to US$8.5bn, with ~US$900m of incremental spend on facility infrastructure and ~US$600m on tools. Q1 ATM gross margin reached 26%, ahead of guidance, and management sees Q2 ATM gross margin rising to 26-27%, with 2H having scope to reach the upper end of its long-term structural range as advanced packaging mix and pricing improve. ASE also reiterated investment across CoWoS full-flow, co-packaged optics (CPO) and panel-level packaging; CoWoS full-flow revenue is targeted at ~US$300m this year and is expected to ramp as capacity expands and customers qualify. The capex upgrade is the second this year, consistent with the company’s repeated message that 2027 is the bigger ramp year and that capacity is being secured ahead of customer commitments.

Linked stocks: 3711 TT, ASX US, 2330 TT, NVDA US

Sources: 〈日月光法說〉上修今年LEAP營收至35億美元 二度調升資本支出, 日月光投控：先進封測成長優於預期 增資本支出擴產, 日月光調升 2026 年資本支出，看好今明兩年先進封裝業務需求爆發, 日月光先進封測業績增1成 上修資本支出逾2成, Google News, 看好AI封裝兩年高成長 日月光資本支出連續加碼

UMC and Powertech accelerate packaging push

UMC (2303 TT) confirmed it is now engaged with more than 10 customers on advanced packaging across AI, communications and high-end consumer applications, with 35+ new tape-outs expected in 2026 and meaningful revenue contribution from this year onward. The disclosure, made on UMC’s call alongside its Q1 print, is the first time the foundry has publicly quantified its packaging customer base. Management said bridge die and deep-trench capacitor (DTC) products are in volume production, and that interposer capacity is currently sufficient with future expansion to track customer projects rather than build ahead. UMC declined to comment on whether it is supplying TSMC’s CoWoS chain, but the bridge die positioning fits chiplet and heterogeneous-integration architectures targeted at AI accelerators. On the financial side, Q1 EPS reached NT$1.29, a 2.5-year high; revenue was NT$61.04bn (-1.2% QoQ, +5.5% YoY), gross margin 29.2%, and net profit NT$16.17bn (+60.8% QoQ, +107.9% YoY). For Q2, UMC guided wafer shipments +7-9% QoQ, ASP +1-3%, and capacity utilization 81-83%, with pricing tailwinds expected mainly in 2H. UMC also announced its first share buyback in six years.

Powertech Technology added its own capex upgrade, lifting 2026 capex from NT$40bn to NT$50bn to fund fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) and CPO build-out, while signaling logic and memory price hikes for Q2 and “quarter-on-quarter higher” revenue with high-single-digit to double-digit YoY growth. Together with ASE, the two represent a step-function increase in Taiwanese advanced packaging investment for 2027 capacity rather than 2026 throughput.

Linked stocks: 2303 TT, UMC US, 6239 TT, 3711 TT, 2330 TT

Sources: 聯電先進封裝布局已獲10家客戶導入 今年開始挹注收益, 〈聯電法說〉Q1獲利年增翻倍 EPS 1.29元 創2年半來新高, 聯電第二季產能利用率將站上 80%，毛利率因攤提費用仍處逆風, 〈聯電法說〉Q2營收估小增 睽違6年擬實施庫藏股, 力成資本支出大加碼至500億元　全力投入FOPLP 、CPO卡位

DeepSeek V4 forces scramble for Huawei Ascend

DeepSeek’s release of V4 last week, optimized specifically for Huawei’s Ascend processors rather than Nvidia GPUs, has triggered a procurement scramble among ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba for the Ascend 950 chip, with cloud and GPU rental firms also moving to secure supply. Huawei confirmed day-zero compatibility across its entire Ascend SuperNode line for V4 inference. The pivot is the first time a frontier-class Chinese AI model has been validated at scale on domestic silicon. “Huawei’s Ascend chips are the country’s best homegrown alternative to Nvidia, and supporting DeepSeek V4 shows that top Chinese AI models can now run on Chinese hardware,” Omdia’s He Hui told Capacity. The context is regulatory: Beijing has blocked import of Nvidia’s H20, while the H200 remains in licensing limbo, leaving Huawei as the only viable option for large-scale domestic AI infrastructure. The constraint is symmetrical: the same US export controls that drove the pivot are limiting Huawei’s manufacturing tools, and DeepSeek itself acknowledges supply constraints will persist into 2H26 as production ramps, with V4-Pro pricing expected to fall once output scales. SMIC, which fabricates the Ascend chips, jumped 10% in Hong Kong on the news. Alongside the V4 development, an Nvidia executive met with Samsung and SK hynix in Seoul on a “physical AI” partnership, underscoring that the supply-side battle is increasingly fought on memory, manufacturing equipment and packaging rather than on logic alone.

Linked stocks: 0981 HK, 005930 KS, 000660 KS, NVDA US, 2330 TT

Sources: Capacityglobal, Google News, Google News, Tom's Hardware

Memory tightness cascades from HBM into LPDDR

A Digitimes report flags that one Vera Rubin GPU consumes the equivalent of roughly 4,500 smartphones’ worth of memory, and that the resulting LPDDR redirection by Nvidia, Qualcomm and Tesla into AI silicon designs is causing supply-demand imbalances that are now triggering panic procurement by handset OEMs. The signal complements the Q1 prints from Taiwanese memory infrastructure names: Silicon Motion (SIMO US) posted record Q1 revenue of US$342m (+23% QoQ, +105% YoY) with EPS US$1.58, and guided Q2 +15-20% with three product lines all growing despite NAND/DRAM tightness; embedded eMMC/UFS controller revenue alone rose 30-35% sequentially. Macronix (2337 TT) reported March net profit up roughly 8x with foreigners buying ~50,000 lots intraday. The buy-side read on memory is also visible at the equity level: Western Digital and SanDisk surged in US trading, with Barron’s framing memory as “riding the OpenAI scare” rather than being dragged by it. The implication is that memory pricing power is no longer just an HBM phenomenon for hyperscalers; it is reaching consumer-grade DRAM and NAND-controller suppliers, and is independent of the OpenAI-driven AI-capex sentiment wobble.

Linked stocks: SIMO US, 2337 TT, WDC US, 005930 KS, 000660 KS, MU US

Sources: 一台Vera Rubin吃掉4,500支手機記憶體　手機廠掀LPDDR恐慌採購, 慧榮Q1每股賺51元 三大產品線齊發 推升營運動能, 慧榮財報／首季營收創歷史新高 估第2季再增15-20%、全年逐季揚, 外資搶買5萬張！旺宏噴天價攻量價雙榜 公告3月淨利暴增8倍, Google News

AI power infrastructure capex cycle steps up

Two of Taiwan’s largest power-electronics platforms, Delta Electronics (2308 TT) and Liteon Technology (2301 TT), simultaneously announced major facility investments to expand AI power and cooling capacity, on the same day each posted record Q1 earnings. Delta’s Q1 net profit reached NT$20.56bn (+18.66% QoQ, +100.92% YoY), EPS NT$7.91 (record high), with gross margin expanding 5.22ppt YoY to 37.0%. The board approved NT$10.3bn for a new Guanyin plant and NT$1.8bn to rebuild Taoyuan plant 1, NT$12.1bn combined. Liteon disclosed a US$1.068bn package: US$919m for a US AI energy infrastructure facility and US$149m to expand its Vietnam subsidiary, with President Anson Chiu saying its 800V HVDC Power Rack is on track for validation in Q3 and 4Q26 mass production, and that ASIC customer shipments have been pulled forward. The capex cadence echoes ASE and Powertech: this is no longer a one-off response to AI demand but a multi-quarter repricing of capacity needs through 2027. Hsinchu Science Park’s director added that TSMC’s Baoshan Fab 20 P3 cleanroom is now in installation, with 4Q26 production start. The implication for investors is that downstream of leading-edge logic, the bottleneck is shifting toward power, cooling, packaging and substrates, where Taiwanese suppliers hold a meaningful incumbency advantage and are choosing now to deploy capital aggressively.

Linked stocks: 2308 TT, 2301 TT, 2330 TT, 6239 TT

Sources: 台達電Q1大賺205億元EPS7.91元創高 斥121億元桃園擴產, 台達電首季EPS創單季新高 法說前宣布砸121億元擴產, cnYES 鉅亨網, 光寶 800VDC 拚第四季量產，ASIC 客戶出貨提前, 光寶科337億元布局美國與越南　第1季是今年谷底, 竹科下半年景氣走高 台積電晶圓20廠預計Q4投產

OpenAI miss tests the AI capex narrative

Reports that OpenAI missed both revenue and user-growth targets ahead of a possible IPO weighed on US tech sentiment overnight and pulled TSMC and the Taiwan benchmark lower, even as the operational Q1 data from the AI supply chain remained constructive. Foreign investors net-sold NT$48.1bn in Taiwan equities for a third consecutive session, with NT$34.4bn pulled from TSMC alone, taking the three-day cumulative outflow to NT$138.6bn. The TAIEX fell 218 points to 39,303.5; the New Taiwan dollar weakened to 31.557 per USD. Local commentary explicitly attributed the pullback to the OpenAI miss, with Moore Investment’s CIO Kuo Che-jung framing it as “not surprising” and signaling that TSMC may not retest NT$2,330 near-term. Bloomberg and others picked up the same thread under “An OpenAI Bubble Is Not an AI Market Bubble”, and Microsoft’s reportedly cooling exclusivity with OpenAI has positioned AWS to court enterprise customers with frontier models from its new partner, including GPT-5.5, Codex and managed agents going live on AWS. The split tape, semis weak on AI sentiment but memory stocks (WDC, SanDisk) rallying on tightness, suggests investors are starting to differentiate between platform monetization risk at OpenAI and underlying compute demand. Big Tech earnings from Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft after the bell, the four largest AI capex spenders, will be the cleaner reading.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, TSM US, NVDA US, MSFT US, AMZN US, META US, GOOGL US

Sources: Mobileworldlive, 郭哲榮：2330元的台積電 再也碰不到？, 外資賣超481億元連三賣 期現貨同步做空 再自台積電提款344億元, 自由時報, Fierce-network, Bloomberg, Google News

先聲 First Word — Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Vera Rubin’s appetite forces handset makers into LPDDR panic buying

Digitimes flags that a single Vera Rubin GPU consumes memory equivalent to roughly 4,500 smartphones, and that aggressive LPDDR allocation into AI silicon designs by Nvidia, Qualcomm and Tesla is now squeezing handset OEMs into emergency procurement. This is the clearest signal yet that DRAM tightness has spread beyond HBM and server DDR5 into consumer mobile DRAM, an area many investors had assumed would be insulated. (29 Apr 2026)

Source: 一台Vera Rubin吃掉4,500支手機記憶體　手機廠掀LPDDR恐慌採購

GlobalWafers booking 2027-2028 capacity for 8” silicon epi

Powerchip-affiliated GlobalWafers (3016 TT) Chairman Hsu Chien-hua said on the Q1 call that several major silicon epi customers are already discussing 2027 and 2028 capacity additions, and that order visibility has lengthened from one to two months historically to two full quarters now, with some customers placing three-quarter orders. The company is tripling original 2026 capex on 8-inch tools and silicon photonics, with AI-driven power-element demand now extending from GPUs into memory, I/O, CPU and power. (29 Apr 2026)

Source: 嘉晶法說會／AI 訂單能見度拉長至三季 董座徐建華：下半年將勝上半年

Powertech jumps 2026 capex 25% to NT$50bn

Powertech Technology (6239 TT) raised 2026 capex from NT$40bn to NT$50bn to fund FOPLP and CPO build-out, signaled price hikes on both logic and memory packaging in Q2, and guided sequential revenue growth through the year with high-single-digit to double-digit YoY growth. Q1 net profit was NT$1.84bn, the second-highest on record for the period. Together with ASE, this confirms a coordinated Taiwanese packaging capex acceleration. (29 Apr 2026)

Source: 力成資本支出大加碼至500億元　全力投入FOPLP 、CPO卡位

Sunrise Tech reveals SpaceX-linked “F customer” as Filtronic

On its analyst meeting Sunrise Tech (3491 TT) GM Wu Tung-yi disclosed that its newly added “F customer”, a UK-based mmWave specialist that supplies high-power amplifiers to SpaceX, now accounts for ~8% of Sunrise Tech’s LEO satellite revenue. Supply-chain checks point to Filtronic. The disclosure is the first explicit Taiwan-side confirmation of the SpaceX terminal supply chain through a UK partner. (29 Apr 2026)

Source: DigiTimes

NB brands shift NRE and tooling fees onto Chinese ODMs

Digitimes reports that NB brands are pushing to cut NRE and tooling charges to defend margin amid component shortages, and that Chinese ODMs are taking share as Taiwanese ODMs redirect resources toward higher-growth AI server work. This marks a tangible structural shift in the consumer notebook supply chain that has been telegraphed for several quarters but is now showing up at order-allocation level. (29 Apr 2026)

Source: （獨家）NB品牌擬削減NRE與模具費　中系ODM趁勢吃下代工版圖