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TrendForce's consulting firm survey shows that there have been changes in the supply and demand situation for eight-inch wafers recently: against the backdrop of gradual production cuts by Taiwan Semiconductor and Samsung, the demand for AI-related Power ICs is steadily growing. Concerns about rising IC costs and capacity constraints in the second half of the year have led to advance procurement. In addition to the fact that the utilization rate of eight-inch production capacity in mainland China has already rebounded to a high level since 2025, other regions have also received customer order upgrades for 2026, resulting in an increase in capacity utilization rates at foundries, prompting them to actively consider raising prices. TSMC has begun to gradually reduce its eight-inch production capacity since 2025, with the goal of completely shutting down some of its plants by 2027. Samsung has also taken a more proactive approach to reducing eight-inch production since 2025. TrendForce anticipates a global decrease in eight-inch production capacity of approximately 0.3% in 2025, leading to negative growth. Even though SMIC and GlobalFoundries plan to slightly increase production in 2026, it will not be enough to offset the reduction in capacity by the two major factories. The estimated annual decrease in capacity is expected to expand to 2.4% in 2026. Some wafer fabs are optimistic that eight-inch production capacity will become tight in 2026 and have informed customers that foundry prices will increase by 5-20%.