According to TrendForce research, the global Metaverse market reached US$38.6 billion in 2021, an increase of 17.9% compared to 2020. The global Metaverse market is expected to reach US$47.5 billion in 2022, with a growth rate of 18.7% and a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) from 2022 to 2030 of 39.4%. With the rapid expansion of the digital economy to the Metaverse and its total addressable market (TAM), total revenue of the global digital economy will account for 22.3% of total global GDP in 2028. Initial estimates reveal that the potential market opportunity of the Metaverse is approximately US$3.8 to US$12.5 trillion.

Due to the vague concept and definition of the Metaverse, specific actions and orientations are mainly based on games and NFTs (Non-Fungible Token, non-fungible tokens). Potential areas of development and feasible markets are also relatively vague, forcing companies into a mostly wait and see stance. In the second half of 2021, countries successively introduced relevant policies for the Metaverse, solidifying a clear development vision, and attracting the participation and speedy investment of Acer, HTC, Microsoft, Tencent, Take-Two, and Lenovo. At present, Adidas, Atari, Ferrari, Gap, Hulu, Nike, Verizon, and Walmart are entering the virtual world in different ways to witness the immersive experience of the digital universe.

Since the Metaverse’s digital asset transaction and exchange program involves three inseparable structures of legal currency, cryptocurrency, and NFTs, it also reeks of issues on many levels including ownership and intellectual property rights, digital asset transfer pricing, system encryption, supervision mechanisms, money laundering prevention, and combating terrorism, resulting in different degrees of openness to the Metaverse in different countries. Take the United States and China as examples.

The U.S. Treasury Department released the “Study of the Facilitation of Money Laundering and Terror Finance Through the Trade in Works of Art” in February 2022. The report pointed out that, due to limited evidence of money laundering, the government temporarily refrained from taking immediate intervention measures against the self-regulating global art industry (including digital assets). However, if the current situation persists, there will be lurking future risks to the US economy and national security, such as an increase in the risk of entities using the soaring value of the digital art market to bypassing global legal norms. Whether or not to intervene will need to be discussed further.

In contrast, China has adopted stricter policies, such as prohibiting the circulation of cryptocurrencies in the market and prohibiting cryptocurrency exchange. From this point of view, if China wants to develop the Metaverse, it will be limited in terms of expanding into new application fields. On the whole, the world has the same development vision in AR/VR, advanced infrastructure (including communication technology), and AI/ML. However, China’s restrictions on “cryptocurrency” and “game bans,” will pose both the greatest challenges and new market opportunities to participants in games and digital assets. Metaverse development plans proposed from various regions in China and the aforementioned legal digital currency show that the Chinese authorities already have a set of plans, development goals, and operation frameworks.

（Image credit: Pixabay）

According to TrendForce research, looking at NAND Flash wafers, the pricing of which more sensitively reflects the market, suppliers are increasingly motivated to cut prices in exchange for sales due to weak retail demand since March and a more conservative outlook for shipments of other end products. The price of NAND Flash wafers is expected to begin falling in May and the supply of NAND Flash will gradually overtake demand in 2H22. The price decline of NAND Flash wafers in 3Q22 may reach 5~10%.

At the same time, TrendForce indicates that February’s contamination incident at Kioxia was expected to tighten the market in 2Q22 and 3Q22. However, as a consequence of rising inflation and the war between Russia and Ukraine, market demand for consumer products in the traditional peak season of the second half of the year is trending conservative and the prices of client SSD, eMMC, and UFS in 3Q22 will be flat compared to 2Q22, breaking from the original expectation that prices may rise. In terms of enterprise SSDs, as demand for data centers remains strong, no significant correction in demand has yet been observed. However, as the overall NAND Flash market gradually moves into oversupply, prices will only grow slightly by approximately 0~5% in 3Q22.

Weakening demand in a period of unabated production expansion, NAND Flash may face oversupply in 2H22

From the perspective of demand, due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, rising inflation, and the pandemic in China, overall demand for consumer electronics is weak. Demand for Chromebooks dwindled rapidly at the beginning of 2022 as exogenous demand from the pandemic disappeared. In terms of conventional notebooks, the situation with commercial models and consumer models present a divergence. Demand for commercial notebooks is benefiting from a return to the office occurring in many countries, while the opposite is true for consumer notebooks. Therefore, overall demand for notebooks in 2022 will be lower compared to demand in 2021. In terms of smart phones, the production volume of Chinese brands has been suppressed due to China’s flailing against the pandemic and government lockdowns stemming from a continued insistence on a dynamic zero-COVID policy, resulting in continuous downward revisions of global smart phone production for 2022.

In terms of supply, Samsung is focusing on substantial future growth in the enterprise SSD sector and continues to maintain its original capacity expansion plan, especially after its NAND production line was derailed due to the Xi’an lockdown at the end of last year. In order to stabilize future plant operations, the capacity of its P2L fab in South Korea continues to increase. Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) will also expand its wafer input plan in 2H22. Since the 128L yield rate has reached the company’s goal and it had successfully broken into the tier 1 smartphone supply chain in 1H22, YMTC will also accelerate production at its second factory in Wuhan. Therefore, TrendForce indicates, since an overall weakness in demand will linger in 2022 yet certain manufacturers will maintain a pattern of expanding production, the NAND Flash market will face oversupply in 2H22. As mentioned above, the prices of various products will be flat or experience reduced growth in 3Q22.

(TechNews) Google confirmed on May 4th that it has acquired Raxium, a start-up company with Micro LED display technology, which is expected to become key in Google’s mission to create a new generation of AR displays.

Google senior vice president of devices and services, Rick Osterloh, who leads the development of Google’s hardware products, stated that Raxium has spent five years creating a small, cost-effective, and energy-efficient high-resolution display that lays the foundation for future display technologies, adding, this company’s technology in this field could play a key role in Google’s hardware investments. Raxium, headquartered in Fremont, California, will be merged into Google’s devices and services group in the future but he did not disclose the purchase price or other details.

According to Raxium’s official website, the pixel pitch of s Super AMOLED screen on a mobile phone is approximately 50 microns but the company’s Micro LED technology can achieve approximately 3.5 microns and it claims to be able to create unprecedented display efficiency.

When foreign media, The Information, reported last month and first exposed Google’s plan to acquire Raxium, it pointed out that Micro LED technology can create AR displays that are more energy-efficient than other solutions while retaining vivid colors. In addition, Raxium is working on the monolithic integration of Micro LEDs, which is expected to significantly reduce costs.

This move makes Google’s plans for subsequent AR hardware products increasingly clear. Google acquired glasses startup North in 2020 and is reportedly recruiting engineers to develop an operating system for AR displays. It was revealed by foreign media in January this year that Google’s laboratory is developing a head-mounted AR device code-named “Project Iris” which is under the same management as “Project Starline” shown at the Google I/O 2021 developer conference last year.

(Source: https://technews.tw/2022/05/05/google-acquires-raxium/)

(TechNews) Following Apple’s inclusion of the iPhone 6 Plus on its list of obsolete products in February this year, the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 2 have also recently been added officially, making it difficult to obtain official repair services for these products in the future.

The iPad Air 2, launched in October 2014, was  Apple’s first iPad Air with Touch ID recognition and utilized the A8X processor. As for the iPad mini 2, which was launched in November 2013, it utilized the same A7 processor as the iPhone 5s, along with the M7 motion-sensing co-processor.

Apple mostly considers products that are 5 to 7 years old as outdated. The iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 2 have already exceeded this lifespan and it is quite reasonable to deem these products obsolete.

However, the inclusion of a product on the obsolete list does not mean that the device cannot be used. If consumers have maintenance requirements, it will depend on whether the company has replacement parts in stock. If there are missing parts, Apple will not repair this product for users.

(Source: https://technews.tw/2022/05/05/bye-bye-ipad-air-2-ipad-mini-2/)

According to TrendForce research, the global high-performance computing market reached approximately US$36.8 billion in 2021, growing 7.1% compared to 2020. The United States is still the largest market for high-performance computing in the world with an approximate 48% share, followed by China and Europe, with a combined share of approximately 35%. Segregated into application markets, high-performance computing is most widely used in scientific research, national defense/government affairs, and commercial applications, with market shares of 15%, 25%, and 50%, respectively. In terms of product type, software (including services) and hardware account for 58% and 42% of the market, respectively.

Since high-performance computing can support data analysis, machine learning (ML), network security, scientific research, etc., it plays a key role in military fields such as nuclear warhead design and missile explosion simulations. Therefore, there are relatively few players occupying key positions in the value chain. Primary suppliers are Fujitsu, HPE, Lenovo, and IBM. These four manufacturers account for a market share of approximately 73.5% globally.

In addition, the continuous development of smart cities, smart transportation, self-driving cars, the metaverse, and space exploration and travel programs launched by Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic will increase the demand for high-performance computing focused on R&D and testing along the two major axes of simulation and big data processing and analysis. The global high-performance computing market is expected to reach US$39.7 billion in 2022, with a growth rate of 7.3%. The CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of the global high-performance computing market from 2022 to 2027 will be 7.4%.

In view of this, the global high-performance computing market is growing steadily but not by much. The reason is that many of the aforementioned commercial application terminals are still in the growth stage, so high-performance computing technologies and solutions adopted by cloud service providers are limited to local deployment This enables HPC servers to scale on-premises or in the cloud and provides dedicated storage systems and software to drive innovation, thereby accelerating the development of hybrid HPC solutions.

In terms of end-use, the high-performance computing market is segmented into BFSI (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance), manufacturing, healthcare, retail, transportation, gaming, entertainment media, education & research, and government & defense. High-performance computing’s highest revenue share was derived from the government and defense market in 2021, primarily due to related agencies actively adopting cutting-edge and advanced IT solutions to improve computing efficiency. At present, government agencies in the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, as well as European countries have successively adopted high-performance computing systems to support digitization projects and contribute to economic development. Therefore, in 2021, the global scale of the on-premise high-performance computing server market was US$14.8 billion, of which Supercomputer, Divisional, Departmental, and Workgroup accounted for 46.6%, 18.9%, 25%, and 9.5% of the market, respectively. The global on-premise high-performance computing server market in 2022 is expected to reach US$16.7 billion with Supercomputer and Divisional growing by 11.5% and 15.2% compared with 2021.

（Image credit: Pixabay）