Asia Essentials - 19 May 2026

Research evidence excerpt

Asia Essentials - 19 May 2026

Macquarie Equity Research

18 May 2026

Technology

Equity Strategy

AsiaAsia Tech Strategy

More legs to the AI-led bull market

Jeffrey Arthur

Key Points Ohlweiler Lai

• We expect continued strong AI infra spending to drive an abnormally

long semi up-cycle, with earnings upside risk through at least 2027.

• Memory is the main bottleneck in 2026 and biggest beneficiary of price DanielKim HiroshiTaguchi

hikes. Key risks are shortages and higher costs (especially in consumer).

• Ahead of Rubin launch we heard NVDA new product readiness issue. Taiwan top picks

Prefer ASIC over GPU, with solid upside risk to TPU and Trainium in

2026-27+.

Strong demand and capex trends to continue

• 1H26 key takeaways: Already bullish CSP (and semi) capex, memory

pricing, AI ASIC momentum, and overall tech earnings growth continue

to be revised up driving strong tech share prices. We do not expect a

reversal of this trend in 2026.

• We continue to see upside for certain already high-flying shares, but

also expect some rotation to some underperforming names (e.g. server

ODMs). We have downgraded several names into strength including

wafers (Sumco and GlobalWafers) on overhyped expectation of the wafer Source: Factset, Macquarie Research, May 2026

up cycle, ASPEED (on competition and slower Rubin ramp), and KYEC closing price as of May 15

(slower Rubin ramp and emerging competition).

Asia top picks• The Key bottleneck in 2026 is still likely memory, which would continue to

drive costs/ASPs higher, putting pressure on system companies' margins,

as well as cap AI growth (which gets preferential supply allocation), and

especially units for non-AI (consumer) areas.

Top regional tech picks

• For Taiwan, we have four tech picks in our Marquee ideas list: TSMC