IBM, following the closure of its China Research Laboratory earlier this year, is now facing fresh reports of layoffs in the region. According to Chinese media Jiemian News, over 1,000 employees across Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, and other locations have recently had their access to IBM’s research and testing systems revoked. Affected staff have been notified to attend an online meeting on August 26.

Jiemian News reported on the 24th that several IBM China employees confirmed the access revocations occurred the previous evening. A lab technician noted that there were no prior warnings, with employees continuing their regular work hours—even working overtime—until the sudden access shutdown. Those impacted have been removed from the company’s product group chats and are unable to access the internal network via VPN, although they still have email access.

The affected employees are primarily from IBMV, which is under the IBM China Development Center and IBM China Systems Center, focusing on research and testing. The revocations span multiple cities, involving over 1,000 staff.

Jiemian News reached out to IBM China for comment, but no response had been received at the time of publication.

IBM has undergone several rounds of layoffs globally in the past two years. In January 2023, the company announced 3,900 job cuts, and later that year, it paused hiring while planning to replace nearly 8,000 roles with AI. Reports from March indicated some departments faced cuts as high as 80%.

IBM China has also seen layoffs over the past year. An internal employee noted that a product line at the China Development Center was axed last year, and some workers reported receiving layoff notices in March, with their departures finalized by late July.

In addition to the changes at IBM China, the Central News Agency reported that China’s economy is currently in a downturn. Earlier, online rumors suggested that Microsoft would close all of its physical stores across China starting July 1, leaving only its official online store and JD.com flagship store. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to the media that the company has decided to streamline its sales channels in China, and customers can still purchase products and access services through retail partners and the official website.

According to the latest report from China’s Yicai, IBM has confirmed it will completely shut down its R&D division in China, impacting over 1,000 employees. While IBM’s primary clients in the region have historically been large state-owned enterprises in critical sectors like finance and energy, the company now plans to shift its focus to serving private enterprises in China and select multinational companies operating there.

(Photo credit: IBM)

According to a report by the Nikkei, Japanese chip manufacturer Kioxia has submitted its initial public offering (IPO) application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, triggering a long-awaited move as the development of artificial intelligence (AI) drives a surge in semiconductor demand. The company aims to go public in October, the report notes.

According to a report by Nikkei, citing sources, Kioxia’s valuation is expected to exceed JPY 1.5 trillion (roughly USD 10.3 billion). The deal is anticipated to surpass the JPY 420 billion raised by chip equipment maker Kokusai Electric during its 2023 IPO, which was the largest of that year. It is also expected to exceed the projected listing of Tokyo Metro in October, estimated at JPY 640 billion to 700 billion.

This move comes at a time when the Japanese government is increasing its support for investment in the chip industry, aiming to secure the supply of critical components amid rising geopolitical tensions.

As per another report from Anue, Kioxia had once planned to conduct its IPO in 2020.

However, the plan was postponed due to the uncertainty in the global chip market caused by U.S.-China trade tensions and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Kioxia’s target valuation exceeded 2 trillion yen, which was later reduced to 1.7 trillion yen.

Last year, Kioxia engaged in merger talks with Western Digital’s flash memory business, but the negotiations stalled due to opposition from Kioxia’s shareholder, SK hynix.

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• [News] Kioxia Ends Production Cuts, Signaling Potential Downturn in NAND Flash Market?
• [News] Kioxia and Western Digital Restart Merger Plan, SK Hynix Reportedly Remains Opposition

(Photo credit: Kioxia)

China has turned itself into “the world’s market” for semiconductor, while it eyes to play a crucial role in chip manufacturing by procuring more equipment. The latest reports by Bloomberg and Technews, citing data from China’s General Administration of Customs, indicates that Chinese imports of chip equipment in the first seven months of 2024 hit a new high, totaling USD 26 billion.

It is worth noting that in July 2024, the Netherlands’ total exports to China exceeded USD 2 billion, reporting the second-highest single-month record ever, the reports say, which can be largely contributed to China’s stockpiling of ASML’s systems and other machinery.

Tightening U.S. Export Restrictions May Lead to China’s Import Surge with Mature Nodes Its Major Focus  

The primary reason behind this surge, according to Bloomberg, may likely be that Chinese tech companies are preparing for further export restrictions on advanced chip manufacturing tools launched by the U.S. and its allies.

The report states that Chinese tech companies are particularly focused on purchasing semiconductor equipment for mature process, from companies like ASML, Applied Materials, and Tokyo Electron. The move allows fabs in China to produce chips needed for local industries, primarily the automotive sector.

Most of the equipment was said to be lithography systems used for mature nodes, which are crucial for Chinese foundries like SMIC. The company is rumored to produce 5nm chips for Huawei this year, by using old deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines purchased from ASML.

New Local Fabs Opening up, Driving China’s Chip Making Equipment Procurement

In addition to counter the possible export restrictions from the U.S., the reports state that China’s aggressive procurement may also be due to the expansion wave of fabs this year. According to SEMI’s projection, among the 42 new fabs expected to go online in 2024, China leads by 18, which further boosts the country’s purchase of semiconductor production equipment.

The momentum also drives demand for local semiconductor equipment manufacturers in China. Chinese semiconductor company Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC) reported a strong second quarter, with its revenue up 36.46% year-on-year to RMB 3.448 billion. Its etching equipment revenue reached RMB 2.698 billion, a year-on-year increase of 56.68%.

Read more

• [News] ASML Claims the World Counts on China for Legacy Chips; So Do Chip Equipment Giants
• [News] Samsung and SK hynix’s China Revenue Doubled in 1H24, Reportedly Driven by Semiconductor and HBM Demand

(Photo credit: SMIC)

According to a report from Korean media outlet BusinessKorea, Rebellions’ CTO Oh Jin-wook announced that the company will adjust its production plans, bypassing the initially planned Rebel ‘Single’ product to focus on the mass production of the Rebel Quad AI chip by the end of the year.

This chip, manufactured using Samsung’s 4nm process, will be equipped with four Samsung’s 12-stack 5th generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM3e), by the end of the year, offering a total memory capacity of 144GB.

Per the report, Oh explained that the company decided to accelerate the release of Rebel Quad due to internal assessments.

He also emphasized the superior power efficiency of Rebel, stating that it has demonstrated more than four times the power efficiency compared to products from Groq, a competing NPU company in the U.S.

Per a report from Reuters, Rebellions has recently signed a formal merger agreement with Sapeon Korea. The merged entity will retain the name Rebellions, and the combined company is expected to be valued at over 1 trillion Korean won, aiming to strengthen its competitiveness in the global AI chip market.

Read more

• [News] South Korea’s AI Chip Startups Sapeon and Rebellions to Merge
• [News] Korea’s First Semiconductor Unicorn in the Making: AI Chip Firms Sapeon and Rebellions Set to Merge

(Photo credit: Rebellions)

According to a report from the Commercial Times, SK hynix is expected to announce a plan of closer collaboration with TSMC and NVIDIA during the Semicon Taiwan exhibition in September, which is likely to focusing on the development of next-generation HBM. This partnership is expected to further strengthen their leadership in the supply of critical components for AI servers.

Semicon Taiwan will be held from September 4 to 6, and sources cited by the same report indicate that SK hynix President Justin Kim will attend the event and deliver a keynote speech for the first time.

Upon arriving in Taiwan, Justin Kim is expected to meet with TSMC executives. The report, citing rumors, suggests that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang might also join the meeting, further strengthening the alliance among the tech giants.

The core of this collaboration will revolve around HBM technology. In the past, SK hynix used its own processes to manufacture base dies up to HBM3e (the fifth-generation HBM).

However, industry sources cited by the report reveal that SK hynix will adopt TSMC’s logic process to manufacture the base die starting from HBM4, which would allow the memory giant to customize products for its clients in terms of performance and efficiency.

Industry sources cited by the report also indicate that SK hynix and TSMC have agreed to collaborate on the development and production of HBM4, scheduled for mass production in 2026.

This collaboration will reportedly involve manufacturing HBM4 interface chips using 12FFC+ (12nm class) and 5nm processes to achieve smaller interconnect spacing and enhance memory performance for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) processors.

Per SK hynix’s product roadmap, the company plans to launch a 12-layer stacked HBM4 in the second half of 2025 and 16-layer in 2026. TSMC, on the other hand, is also working to strengthen and expand its CoWoS-L and CoWoS-R packaging capacity to support the large-scale production of HBM4.

SK hynix has been the major supplier of HBM for NVIDIA’s AI GPUs, and with the upcoming Rubin series planned for 2026, it is expected to adopt HBM4 12Hi with 8 clusters per GPU. This partnership between SK hynix, TSMC and NVIDIA, therefore, is expected to expanding its influence and widening the gap with Samsung.

Read more

• [News] SK hynix, TSMC, and NVIDIA Reportedly Forge Alliance to Develop Next-Generation HBM
• [News] TSMC Reportedly Secures Another AI Opportunity, Winning Order from SK Hynix

(Photo credit: SK hynix)