Panel maker AUO has spent 2026 selling display factories. On Monday, investors decided the next buyer might be a chipmaker.
Its stock rose above 9 percent in Taipei, reaching NT$33.2 on more than 530,000 lots, the heaviest turnover on the exchange. The interest came from speculation about who wants the remaining floor space. Local reports describe two separate conversations. In one, TSMC is looking at the Gen 5 and Gen 7.5 lines AUO runs in the Central Taiwan Science Park. In the other, the tie-up is technical rather than a property deal. AUO would contribute substrate know-how, Intel the packaging roadmap, and the goal is optics packaged with the chip.
Neither company would comment. What is not in dispute is that AUO has already shed capacity this year. Three plants have changed hands, and the company’s chairman, Paul Peng, has said publicly that advanced packaging and glass substrates are now part of the business.
The logic runs through the display industry’s decline. Chinese panel output has compressed margins for everyone, and TrendForce projects that AUO and Innolux together will supply under a tenth of LCD monitor panels by 2028. Substrates and packaging sit on the opposite curve.
