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The outstanding balance on U.S. credit cards has reached 1.29 trillion USD, a record high. Rising prices have made people increasingly dependent on credit card payments for everyday expenses, with credit card debt up 22 billion USD from the previous quarter.
Elon Musk announced that SpaceX will create a "conscious sun" and has ordered from German equipment supplier Singulus a 100 GW annual capacity heterojunction solar cell manufacturing system to support the Starmind AI satellite project. The parties have signed a supply agreement, and the first production line is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2027, with plans to expand to multiple lines to meet demand exceeding 100 GW.
Elon Musk accuses SoftBank of breaching a natural gas turbine order, but SoftBank's subsidiary Silver Bands 7 actually adjusted the power equipment procurement for U.S. AI data centers, recording a loss of about $3.7 billion. Although the procurement scale was reduced, it did not violate the contract, and the accusation is only half true.
OpenAI's third-quarter revenue was about $10 billion, up roughly 50% from the second quarter, but adjusted operating loss widened from $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion. Paid users reached about 100 million, accounting for 8.5% of weekly active users. The company is accelerating its entry into the enterprise AI market and plans to go public next year.
The Taiwan stock market closed today at its highest point of 44,257.15, rising 1,545.23 points or 3.62%, reestablishing the 10-day moving average and marking the sixth largest closing gain in history. Key drivers included a strong opening for TSMC shares, gains in the Nikkei 225 and South Korea's KOSPI indices, and support from financial conglomerates.
Ajinomoto increased its financial forecast for FY2026 twice in response to rising demand for semiconductor dielectric material ABF. Consolidated net profit was raised to 135 billion yen, setting a new historical high for the second consecutive year. Sales and profits of the electronic materials business also increased significantly.
Rapidus Corp., a Japanese semiconductor foundry startup funded by the government, was originally slated to achieve mass production of advanced 2nm processes by the end of March 2028. However, technical progress has lagged, raising doubts that the target will be met on schedule. Key technology, SRAM, has not yet been successfully manufactured, causing the verification goal set for summer 2026 to be missed and further increasing the risk of delay. Rapidus has partnered with IBM to develop the 2nm process and has begun pilot production, but still faces competition from leading advanced process manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung Electronics, and Intel.
A French supermarket's refrigeration equipment was hacked, with preliminary investigations indicating that a hacker unit under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Shahid Kaveh, was responsible. The attack caused millions of euros worth of food to be discarded and at least 15 fires. The French government will summon the Iranian ambassador and propose EU sanctions.
AMD shares rebounded 13% on Monday, with investment firm Oppenheimer raising its rating and setting a $600 target price, implying a 34% upside. Oppenheimer analyst Schafer noted that AMD's Q3 earnings beat expectations and projected a 135% increase in data center revenue for 2027, largely driven by chip investments from OpenAI, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, and Saudi Arabian AI companies.
Under the influence of falling international oil prices and a rebound in U.S. technology stocks, the Taiwan market continued its rally today. Leading the surge were electronic sector stocks such as TSMC, MediaTek, Delta Electronics, and ASE Group, driving the weighted index to a peak rise of over 1,400 points in the early session. Although the midday session saw a slight pullback as the gains in electronic stocks converged, the weighted index finished the day up 1,050.22 points (2.52%), closing at 42,711.92 and successfully reclaiming the 5-day trendline. Trading volume reached 1.334 trillion New Taiwan dollars.