July 18, 2026 — Lens Technology’s unit Lens Intelligent Robotics (Changsha) and Shangwei New Materials signed a strategic cooperation to build a first-phase production line targeting a 10,000‑unit robot capacity. The agreement covers precision parts machining, joint-module manufacture and final assembly, and aims to deploy capacity and advance mass-production delivery.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched a devastating combined missile-and-drone strike on fighter-jet shelters and large aircraft aprons inside the US base at Azraq, Jordan.

Yangtze Optical Fibre executive director and CEO Zhuang Dan said on July 18 that global fiber demand has shifted from telecom to AI/compute‑center drivers. He cited forecasts to 2030 showing FTTx CAGR of 2.47% versus a 20.74% CAGR for compute‑center demand. Zhuang said Yangtze ranks first domestically in polarization‑maintaining (PM) fiber market share for five consecutive years and predicted PM fiber demand could increase by an order of magnitude — possibly 10x–20x — over the next one to two years, driven by next‑generation high‑performance CPUs and silicon photonics components.