Foxconn showcased its push into artificial intelligence at its annual ‘Hon Hai Tech Day’ in Taiwan on Friday, underscoring the world’s largest contract manufacturer’s efforts to evolve beyond its role as the biggest assembler of Apple’s iPhones. 

The company, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has also become a major player in the AI hardware space, with its event taking place the same day it announced a partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a video statement streamed at the event, said that the two firms would “share insight into emerging hardware needs across the AI industry.”

He added that Foxconn would use those insights to design and prototype new equipment that could be manufactured in the United States.

The partnership will center on Foxconn’s server business, which earlier this year became its largest revenue driver and helped drive record profit in the September quarter.

Describing Foxconn and OpenAI as “natural partners,” Kirk Yang, an adjunct finance professor at National Taiwan University, told CNBC, “OpenAI needs strong partners, not only to manufacture products, but to quickly introduce all the products to the market.”

“So I think it makes perfect sense for OpenAI to work with Foxconn. And Foxconn is probably the strongest partner that open AI can find,” he added.

Foxconn also announced a partnership with Intrinsic, a unit of Alphabet to build so-called “artificial intelligence factories.” 

The Taiwanese manufacturer highlighted deeper work with Nvidia as well, showcasing its compute trays for the chip designer’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips.

Speaking at the Friday event, Alexis Bjorlin, vice president and general manager of Nvidia’s DGX Cloud unit, said the partners would work on deploying advanced AI infrastructure much faster to meet customer demand.

AI hardware orders have surged this year, with Nvidia beating third-quarter expectations on Wednesday and providing a strong forecast for the current quarter.

Despite Nvidia’s results showing that demand for AI hardware remains strong, concerns persist in the market about a potential AI bubble and the sustainability of heavy AI spending. 

Speaking to CNBC’s Emily Chan on the sidelines of Hon Hai Tech Day, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu expressed confidence that the company would be protected from a potential AI bubble.

“No matter what [AI] models or [AI] model players will win, they all need hardware, and no matter what GPU player will win, they all need system and component suppliers to support them,” he said.

— CNBC’s Emily Chan contributed to this report

A sector-wide pullback hit Asian chip stocks Friday, led by a steep decline in SoftBank, after Nvidia‘s sharp drop overnight defied its stronger-than-expected earnings and bullish outlook.

SoftBank plunged more than 10% in Tokyo. The Japanese tech conglomerate recently offloaded its Nvidia shares but still controls British semiconductor company Arm, which supplies Nvidia with chip architecture and designs.

SoftBank is also involved in a number of AI ventures that use Nvidia’s technology, including the $500 billion Stargate project for data centers in the U.S.

South Korea’s SK Hynix fell nearly 10%. The memory chip maker is Nvidia’s top supplier of high-bandwidth memory used in AI applications. Samsung Electronics, a rival that also supplies Nvidia with memory, fell over 5%. 

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and manufacturer of Nvidia’s chip designs, was down over 4% in Taipei. 

Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, which manufactures server racks designed for AI workloads, dipped 4%.

The retreat in major Asian semiconductor giants comes after Nvidia fell over 3% in the U.S. on Thursday, despite beating Wall Street expectations in its third-quarter earnings the night before. 

The company also provided stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter sales guidance, which analysts said could lift earnings expectations across the sector. 

However, smaller chip players in Asia were not spared either.

In Tokyo, Renesas Electronics, a key Nvidia supplier, fell 2.3%. Tokyo Electron, which provides essential chipmaking equipment to foundries that manufacture Nvidia’s chips, was down 5.32%. 

Another Japanese chip equipment maker, Lasertec, was down over 3.5%.

Air taxi maker Joby Aviation in a new lawsuit accused competitor Archer Aviation of using stolen information by a former employee to “one-up” a partnership deal with a real estate developer.

“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” Joby said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California Superior Court in Santa Cruz, where the company is based.

Archer and Joby did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that former U.S. state and local policy lead, George Kivork, downloaded dozens of files and sent some content to his personal email two days before he resigned in July to take a job at Archer, which had recruited him.

By August, Joby said a partner that worked with Kivork said it had been approached by Archer with a “more lucrative deal.” Joby alleges that the eVTOL rival’s understanding of “highly confidential” details helped it leverage negotiations.

Joby also said the developer attempted to terminate the agreement, citing a breach of confidentiality.

Kivork refused to return the files when Joby approached him after conducting an investigation, according to the suit. The company also said Archer denied wrongdoing, and would not disclose how it learned about the terms of the agreement or provide results from an internal investigation it allegedly undertook.

The lawsuit comes during a busy period for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology as companies race to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification to start flying commercially. ‘

The sector has also benefitted from President Donald Trump‘s newly minted eVTOL pilot program.

Joby argued in the complaint that it’s “imperative” to protect Joby’s work “from this type of espionage” to promote the sector’s success and ensure fair competition.

Last week, Joby said it completed its first test flight for a hybrid aircraft it’s working on with defense contractor L3Harris. This month, Amazon-backed Beta Technologies, another electric flight company, also went public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Joby shares have more than doubled over the last year, while Archer is up about 68%.

In August 2023, Archer settled a previous legal dispute with Boeing-owned Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets. As part of the deal, Archer agreed to use Wisk as its autonomous tech partner.

A hearing is scheduled for March 20, 2026.