The semiconductor industry enters 2026 amid a fundamental transformation as AI continues to expand faster than any previous compute wave. SoC design teams are confronting a level of complexity that is forcing a shift toward system-level thinking that prioritizes scalable compute and memory fabrics over traditional SoC approaches.
Across the industry, AI continues to fuel a historic growth cycle, with data-processing applications on track to surpass 50% of total semiconductor revenue for the first time. But beneath that macro trend lies a more fundamental transformation of how advanced systems are architected, integrated, and verified.
Arteris experts predict that as we move forward in 2026, the key breakthroughs and the biggest risks will be tied not to individual IP blocks, but to the data-movement infrastructure across entire systems. Here are some of our key predictions on what to expect industry-wide in the coming year.