By Wen-Yee Lee
TAIPEI, May 27 (Reuters) – Nvidia’s chief executive said on Wednesday the chip company plans to invest around $150 billion a year in Taiwan, terming it the “epicentre” of the AI revolution and predicting it will be the world’s tech manufacturing hub for a long time.
“Four years ago, five years ago, Nvidia was spending about 10, 15 billion dollars a year in Taiwan. Now we’re spending 100, going to 150 billion dollars in Taiwan each year,” CEO Jensen Huang said at a launch celebration in Taipei for the $5 trillion chipmaker’s planned Taiwan headquarters.
The project will break ground this year and aims to be operational in 2030, Huang said. He did not provide a timeframe for the number of years the company plans to invest $150 billion.
The Taiwan headquarters will bring Nvidia closer to TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, which makes many of the advanced semiconductors powering the trend towards AI and is a major supplier to the U.S. tech giant.
It will also help the world’s most valuable company boost its alliances with other manufacturing partners including Foxconn, Wistron and Quanta Computer, which all play key roles in the build-out of AI servers and infrastructure.
“Taiwan is booming,” Huang said on stage to a crowd including his family, around 1,000 employees and Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an. He said Nvidia planned to employ 4,000 people at the new site.
“Taiwan is the epicentre of the AI revolution. This is where the chips come, packaging comes, this is where the systems are made, this is where AI supercomputers were created. The number of partners we work with here in Taiwan, incredible.”
Huang was born in the southern city of Tainan, Taiwan’s historic capital, and Wednesday’s launch was attended by his parents, and his wife, daughter and son. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 9, and has somewhat of a rockstar status in Taiwan, where his every move is followed closely.
Earlier this month Huang was part of the delegation that accompanied U.S. President Donald Trump on a trip to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Taiwan plays a pivotal role in the global AI supply chain for companies including Nvidia and Apple, and its position is anchored by TSMC.
Underscoring the significance of Taiwan, Advanced Micro Devices said last week it would invest more than $10 billion in Taiwan’s AI sector to deepen strategic partnerships and expand its capacity to build and assemble advanced AI chips.
Nvidia made history late last year when it became the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value, cementing its place at the centre of the global AI boom, and Huang said on Wednesday it will be worth even more in three to five years.
Last week, Nvidia aimed to assure investors that it can keep up its blockbuster growth with the help of a broad base of customers and that new products will help it beat the $1 trillion in sales it has forecast for its flagship AI chips.
(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee in Taipei; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Muralikumar Anantharaman and John Mair)
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