Inside Taiwan

In this episode, Inside Taiwan examines why markets are questioning AI valuations even as hardware innovation accelerates. From TAIEX volatility and pressure on TSMC to Google’s deepening partnership with MediaTek, Nvidia’s pivot to co-packaged optics, and emerging AI strategies in Japan and China, the episode explains where AI value is consolidating and why execution now matters more than hype.

Why did Taiwan’s stock market suddenly pull back on AI names? TAIEX fell about 1.17 percent in one session. TSMC dropped over 2 percent. Foreign investors sold roughly USD 1.6 billion, reflecting concern over AI payback periods rather than d...

Why Is the AI Boom Creating a Physical Race That Money Alone Cannot Buy?

This Inside Taiwan episode explains how the AI boom is reshaping global supply chains. It covers Taiwan’s overtime surge, record exports, shifting trade flows, Gudeng’s strategic decisions, South Korea’s national foundry plan, China’s demand for advanced processors, the rise of SMRs, and the origin story of the ASML and TSMC partnership.

Q1. Why are advanced component makers hesitant to expand production in the US?
Gudeng Precision says building in the US is premature due to high costs an...

Why Is the AI Gold Rush Turning the Digital Economy Into a Physical One?

Q1 Why is this moment being called an AI gold rush?
Global demand for AI servers and advanced chips is accelerating at a pace that is reshaping trade flows. Taiwan’s latest export data shows a 56 percent year over year surge to USD 64 billion, marking the 25th straight month of growth. Shipments of information and communication tech, including AI servers, grew 1.7 times. This is the strongest signal yet that AI demand is moving from hype to real economic impact.

Q2 Ho...

Why Is AI Scaling So Fast That the World Keeps Turning Back to Taiwan?

Q1: Why is Taiwan central in today’s AI acceleration
AI demand is rising faster than global capacity growth. Taiwan is the only manufacturing ecosystem that can deliver advanced chips, packaging and AI servers at the required speed and scale. The capacity for technologies like CoWoS remains almost fully booked as global firms rush to secure supply.

Q2: Why does the world depend on Taiwan for supply chain stability
AI demand exposes bottlenecks across global supply chains. Taiwan provides co...

From the Factory Floor to Boardrooms and Into Financial Markets, Why Is Taiwan Powering the AI Boom Today?

Q1 Why is advanced packaging creating a bottleneck in Taiwan?
CoWoS demand from AI customers exceeds capacity. TSMC is raising output toward 130,000 wafers a month by 2026 while OSAT partners expand to close the gap.

Q2 Why are global chip strategies adjusting around Taiwan’s role?
Advanced packaging remains anchored in Taiwan, so companies are diversifying mature nodes elsewhere. Moves like UMC and Polar exploring 8 inch production in the United States strengthen resilience without replacing Ta...

Why Is the AI Race Creating New Chip Frenemies and Where Does Taiwan Fit in the Power Shift?

Q1. Why are cloud providers building custom silicon now?
Because the scale of AI demand has outgrown any single architecture. AWS says Trainium3 offers over four times the performance and 40 percent better energy efficiency, while still expanding orders for general purpose GPUs. The future is a mix of both systems, not a replacement.

Q2. How is this changing Taiwan’s supply chain outlook?
Whether a rack is filled with GPUs or custom ASICs, most of th...

Why Is AI Rewriting the Global Chip Supply Chain Faster Than the Industry Can Adapt?

Q1. What is causing the sudden memory shortage?
AI models require high bandwidth memory, and manufacturers have shifted production from standard DRAM to HBM. DRAM inventories have fallen from 13 to 17 weeks to as low as two to four weeks, and prices for some memory types have more than doubled since February.

Q2. How is this reshaping global competition?
New AI systems for autonomous driving and enterprise model customization are accelerating demand for advanced chips. Taiwan’s supply chain st...

Why Is the AI Hardware Race Splitting Into Two Tracks and Why Taiwan Matters?

Q1. What is driving the shift from a GPU-only boom to a dual GPU and ASIC race?
Demand for custom AI chips has accelerated as hyperscalers push for efficiency and scale. Hon Hai is producing over 1,000 AI racks per week for TPU deployments and plans to double output by 2026. Analysts expect high-end ASIC shipments to grow 41 percent annually. This signals a new phase in AI infrastructure where diversified hardware suppliers become the more resilient winners.

Q2. How is Taiwan consolidating...

What Are Taiwan’s Latest AI Signals Telling Us About the Next Tech Cycle?

From Taipei, we track the signals shaping the world’s most valuable supply chain. Taiwan just raised its 2025 GDP forecast to 7.37 percent on the strength of AI server demand, yet manufacturing indicators slipped into a caution zone and markets pulled back as investors took profits. The question is how these mixed signals should be read as the next tech cycle forms.

Q1. Are we seeing acceleration or early caution?

GDP revisions reflect a powerful AI hardware surge, driven by U.S...

Can the World Build AI Fast Enough When Taiwan’s Supply Chain Is Already at Full Stretch?

Q1: Why is global AI demand hitting physical limits so quickly?
Because the build out is happening faster than infrastructure can keep up. Tech giants may spend up to 320 billion dollars on AI data centers in 2025, but Bloomberg reports the U.S. grid could face a power shortfall by 2028. The AI boom is outpacing electricity, land, and construction timelines.

Q2: What does Taiwan’s newest bottleneck tell us about the AI supply chain?
GPTC, a key CoWo...

Why Is the Future of the World’s AI Chips Being Decided in Taiwan?

Why does the U.S. need Taiwan’s semiconductor expertise now more than ever?
Because Washington cannot fix its talent gap alone. Reuters reports the U.S. is negotiating a deal that lowers Taiwan’s 20 percent export tariff in exchange for Taiwanese investment and on-the-ground engineering support. TSMC would send teams to train American workers, addressing the labor shortage C. C. Wei highlighted when he said Arizona’s fab took twice as long to build as one in Taiwan. Capital can build fabs, bu...

Meta x Google: The Next AI Chip Shift and Taiwan’s Upside

Q1. What is the larger strategic signal behind Meta exploring Google’s TPUs
Meta is in advanced discussions to use Google’s TPUs, according to The Information and Reuters. The plan includes renting TPUs through Google Cloud next year and evaluating Google’s custom chips for Meta’s data centers around 2027. Meta’s AI budget could reach 72 billion dollars this year, creating significant room for alternatives to Nvidia. Analysts cited by CNBC say Google aims to capture about 10 percent of Nvidia’s annual revenue through a full...

Why Taiwan Is Becoming the Strategic Center of the Global Chip Fight

Q1. What new signals suggest a shift in US semiconductor policy toward China?
A potential rule change reported by Reuters shows the US Commerce Department is considering allowing Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China. The H200 carries more high-bandwidth memory and roughly twice the performance of the restricted H20 model. This could reopen one of Nvidia’s largest global markets.  If approved, the decision suggests a recalibration in Washington as it balances economic competitiveness with national security priorities. This shift will inf...

Below is today’s snapshot of the Foxconn and Nvidia story redefining the boundaries of the AI economy.

Q1. Why is Foxconn moving from assembly to architecture in the AI era

Foxconn is positioning itself as a full stack AI infrastructure builder. At its latest Tech Day, the company announced a Taiwan based AI data center that will deploy Nvidia’s GB300 NVL72 platform, described by Focus Taiwan as one of the most powerful AI systems globally. The 27 megawatt facility is expected in 2026 and is framed as a foundation for sovereign AI, enabling Taiwan’s 1.6 millio...

The Rise of Agentic AI and the New Silicon Power Map Anchored in Taiwan

Q: Why did one earnings report move markets from Wall Street to Taipei?
Nvidia reported 51.2 billion dollars in Q3 data center revenue, beating expectations and guiding for mid-sixties next quarter. Jensen Huang said early Blackwell demand is “off the charts”. Taiwan felt the impact immediately. The Taiex surged 846 points, a 3.18 percent jump. TSMC rallied 4.3 percent. Foreign investors added 13.11 billion NT dollars, according to Focus Taiwan. The surge signals how tightly Taiwan’s economy is linked to global AI infrastructure demand.

Q: Wha...

Today’s episode examines three questions shaping the next phase of Taiwan’s tech future, from advanced process IP to energy security to the trillion-dollar AI investment curve.

Q1: Why is Taiwan treating the TSMC investigation as a national security moment
A former senior VP for corporate strategy at TSMC, Lo Wei jen, is under investigation after allegedly removing restricted documents tied to the 2 nanometer node and the upcoming A16 and A14 roadmaps for 2026 and 2028. Focus Taiwan reports he took more than 80 boxes of materials before returning to Intel after 21 years at TSMC. Prosecutors and the Mini...

From Taipei, the center of the world’s semiconductor engine, we track the key shifts shaping the global AI supply chain. Inside Taiwan is a daily AI-powered podcast delivering fast, reliable analysis from the island’s unique vantage point.

Q: Is the AI market cooling, or is demand still accelerating beneath the volatility?
Institutional selling from major investors contrasts with record-high demand across compute infrastructure. Taiwan’s supply chain data, from TSMC’s reserved 3 nanometer capacity to double-digit AI server growth forecasts, suggests long-term acceleration rather than a slowdown.

Q: What bottlenecks could slow the next...

This episode examines the forces reshaping memory, manufacturing, and investment flows across Asia, and why Taiwan is becoming the blueprint for the next decade of AI growth.

Q: How is Asia redefining the infrastructure map for AI?
Taiwan’s GMI Cloud and Nvidia are building a 500 million dollar AI factory with 7,000 Blackwell Ultra GPUs and a 16 megawatt footprint. Leadership from Nvidia calls it a benchmark for energy efficient AI. In Korea, Samsung plans about 340 billion dollars of domestic investment while SK Group’s Yongin cluster may exceed 400 billion dollars with new fabs dedicated to HBM. These buil...

From Taipei, where the world’s chips are born, we decode the week’s biggest semiconductor shifts. This episode examines a new frontier in the global AI supply chain. It is no longer about GPUs alone. It is about the electricity, cooling, and infrastructure required to run them. Taiwan sits at the center of this transition, shaping both the hardware and the systems that will define the next decade of AI.

Q: Why is energy becoming the new bottleneck in the AI supply chain?
OpenAI is reportedly exploring plans for 250 gigawatts of computing capacity by 2033. That is e...

This week, one number stunned economists: Taiwan’s exports surged nearly 50% year-on-year to a record US$61.8 billion, driven by the global AI buildout. Behind that headline lies both the momentum and the pressure of an industry racing against time.

Q: Why are Taiwan’s exports rising so fast?

AI hardware and semiconductor shipments surged—up 140% and 28% respectively—accounting for almost 80% of total growth, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance. For the first time since 2003, the United States has overtaken China as Taiwan’s top export market, showing a deeper alignment with the U.S. AI ecosystem...

AI’s Power-Hungry Reality: When Vision Outruns Infrastructure

Q: What happens when vision meets reality in the AI supply chain?

The AI boom is redrawing budgets and borders. TSMC has approved a US $15 billion capital budget to expand its most advanced 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer fabs, along with new CoWoS packaging plants that link CPUs, GPUs, and memory at lightning speed. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang personally visited TSMC to request additional capacity, showing how tight advanced-node supply has become. This is not hype; it is a long-term commitment to the physical foundation of AI.

Q: How...

The Reality Check: Why Advanced Chipmaking Still Belongs to Asia

As Double 11 shatters e-commerce records across Asia, the real winners are the chipmakers powering the AI engines behind every recommendation, transaction, and the rise of a new industrial economy built on silicon and data.

Q: Why is the AI manufacturing boom still centered in Asia?
Even with record subsidies, the world’s most advanced manufacturing capacity has not shifted. Building a chip ecosystem takes decades of capital, engineering talent, and supplier depth. These foundations remain firmly anchored in Taiwan and Korea.

Q: Ho...

Q: What happens when the six architects of modern AI gather in one room?
They don’t talk hype, they talk infrastructure.
In a rare conversation among the winners of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Jensen Huang, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, and Bill Dally revealed a shared vision: AI is becoming a new kind of industrial base, one powered by computation, not coal.

Q: Why Power and Compute Are Becoming the Next AI Bottleneck

According to media report, U.S. grid operator PJM faces 32 GW of new demand fr...

Q1: Where is the real battle for AI dominance being fought?
The center of gravity in AI has shifted from software to silicon. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son reportedly explored a $100 billion takeover of Marvell, the U.S. chip designer behind key AI networking chips for Amazon Web Services. The move would have given SoftBank control not only of Arm’s CPU architecture but also of the data-center hardware where AI runs. The plan was halted, but the message was clear: in the AI economy, manufacturing is strategy.

Q2: Why are chip bottlenecks deepening despite record investment?
T...

Every tech revolution starts with a dream — and ends with a reckoning.
Today’s AI boom looks unstoppable. Trillions in capital are chasing the same promise: whoever builds true Artificial General Intelligence first will own the next century of technology. But beneath the excitement lies an uncomfortable truth — bubbles don’t feel like bubbles until they burst.

This week’s episode of Inside Taiwan explores the paradox at the heart of the AI frenzy. Why are investors pouring billions into a market that even its own pioneers call a “bubble”? What will actually remain when the hype fades — a...

For months, the world has obsessed over the “chip war” — who can build the fastest, smallest, and smartest silicon. But the next great AI battle won’t be fought in clean rooms. It’ll be fought in power plants.

A leaked OpenAI letter to the White House revealed an uncomfortable truth: America will need to double its annual electricity generation just to keep pace with AI growth — 100 gigawatts a year, twice the entire capacity added in 2024. China, meanwhile, added more than four times that amount. The global race for AI dominance has quietly become a race for energy secur...

Five trillion dollars.

That’s how high Nvidia’s valuation briefly soared this week—more than the GDP of Japan.
But behind that headline number lies something much bigger: the quiet formation of a new global order for technology itself.

We are entering an AI industrial revolution, and the real story isn’t just about who builds the smartest chips.
It’s about where they’re built, who controls the ingredients, and how nations are redrawing the map of power.

Here’s what’s changing:

Nvidia’s Blackwell chips—its fastest yet—are...

AI isn’t just code anymore — it’s in earnings, factories, and national strategies.

In the latest episode of Inside Taiwan, we unpack the signals behind Apple and Amazon’s strong results, Korea’s 260 K-GPU “AI factory” plan, and NVIDIA’s five-trillion-dollar surge — and why every one of them points to Taiwan’s expanding role at the heart of the global AI supply chain.

We connect the dots from capex to capacity, from power grids to packaging — revealing how hardware, energy, and policy are now the real competitive edges in the AI era.

🎙️ Tune in for a data-driven v...

Five trillion. One trillion.
Those aren’t sci-fi numbers — they’re the new market caps defining the AI era.

In the latest episode of Inside Taiwan, we explore whether today’s trillion-dollar valuations mark the start of a bubble or the birth of a new industrial revolution.

From OpenAI’s IPO ambitions to NVIDIA’s meteoric rise, this isn’t just a tech story — it’s a geopolitical chess game where supply chains, national security, and innovation collide.

🎙️ I break down what’s real, what’s hype, and what investors should be watching — especially as Ta...

There are two sides to every revolution.

On one side: NVIDIA setting up a new base in Taipei, crossing a $5 trillion valuation, and redefining what global AI leadership looks like.

On the other: tens of thousands of white-collar layoffs, as companies cite AI efficiency as the reason for restructuring.

This week on Inside Taiwan, we explore how the world’s most valuable chipmaker and its partners are redrawing the global supply chain — and what this means for the people powering it.

From NVIDIA’s new Taipei HQ to Wenyee’s $3.8B acquisit...

A trillion-dollar power shift is underway in the world of AI chips — and this week, the fault lines moved.

In this episode of Inside Taiwan, host Fiona Chou breaks down Tesla’s landmark $16.5 billion AI-chip partnership with Samsung — a move that could reshape the semiconductor supply chain and challenge TSMC’s dominance.

From Seoul to Silicon Valley, we trace how this deal signals a new era of AI manufacturing diversification, the rise of system-level competition, and the ripple effects now reaching the global economy.

We’ll also look at Qualcomm’s push into AI inference...

The narrative around AI often focuses on model releases and product demos. But the real story is unfolding deeper in the stack: the physical, national, and computational infrastructure that determines who will lead the next era of technology.

This week on Inside Taiwan, four developments reveal how quickly the landscape is shifting.

In Seoul, Samsung crossed the 100,000-won milestone, driven by High-Bandwidth Memory demand and renewed confidence in Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s “New Samsung” strategy. The company is positioning itself at the core of AI memory, an area that increasingly defines system-level performance.

In the...

Tesla confirmed that its next-generation AI chip will be manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung. This marks a meaningful shift in how the industry thinks about risk, capacity, and geographic concentration.

For the past decade, the default strategy for the most advanced chips has been single-sourcing through TSMC. Their technical leadership, operational discipline, and economics made the decision straightforward.

However, as AI accelerates from early adoption into industrial deployment, the assumptions behind single sourcing are changing. The industry is entering a period defined by diversification, system-level performance, and geographic hedging.

Samsung is attempting...

From the data center to the trading floor — the AI revolution is becoming real.

In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I explore two stories that reveal how fast the next industrial era is being built:

🔹 CoreWeave’s CEO Mike Intrator explains the “relentless demand” for AI compute — and why he says this isn’t a bubble, but the start of a new economic infrastructure.
🔹 OpenAI’s “Project Mercury” aims to train models on Wall Street workflows — automating the 100-hour weeks of junior bankers to free them for strategy and creativity.

Together, they show how AI’s physical railr...

If every nation wants to be an AI superpower… who actually controls the keys?

Every country wants its own AI.

It’s called Sovereign AI — the idea that true national independence in the next industrial era depends on owning your own AI stack, not renting it from Silicon Valley.

But here’s the catch: building it means navigating an impossible supply chain controlled by a handful of players — Nvidia, TSMC, and ASML.

In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I break down the global race for AI sovereignty — and why every road leads back to...

The world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing is moving from Taiwan to American soil.

Nvidia’s first U.S.-made Blackwell chip, produced in TSMC’s new Arizona fab, marks more than an industrial milestone — it may signal the birth of a new AI-driven economic era.

In this episode of Inside Taiwan, I unpack:
• What Mohamed El-Erian means by a “rational bubble”
• Why TSMC Arizona is both a triumph and a risk
• How IMF warnings about over-concentration could reshape markets
• And the trillion-dollar question: Is this the next industrial revolution… or a bubble in slow motio...

The next tech era isn’t being imagined — it’s being built.

In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I explore how three Taiwanese powerhouses are shaping the foundation of the AI-driven global economy:

🔹 TSMC just posted record-breaking earnings — with AI and high-performance computing now driving over half of its revenue.
🔹 Foxconn (Hon Hai), for the first time, earns more from AI servers than from iPhones — marking a historic industrial pivot.
🔹 OwlTing, a newly listed fintech, is quietly building the financial rails for the stablecoin era — a potential “Visa for Web3.”

These stories connect across one...

TSMC just posted record-breaking profits — a signal that the AI boom isn’t slowing down.

Behind it lies a complex web of trillion-dollar partnerships: OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank are reshaping the economics of computing itself.

In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I unpack how:

TSMC’s record profits reflect the AI infrastructure supercycle.

OpenAI’s trillion-dollar funding web reveals a new model of ecosystem finance.

U.S.–China negotiations over rare earths could tilt the balance of global AI supply chains.

🎧 Listen: The Trillion-Dollar AI Buildout: Inside TSMC’s R...

In this episode of Inside Taiwan, we uncover the hidden human and cultural forces behind two of the world’s most influential industries — bicycles and semiconductors.

First, Taiwan’s Giant Manufacturing, a symbol of craftsmanship and pride, faces a stunning U.S. import detention order over allegations of forced labor. We unpack how recruitment fees and shifting global ESG standards have created new compliance risks for Taiwan’s entire export sector.

Then, we travel to the Netherlands to examine ASML, the quiet powerhouse with a monopoly on EUV lithography machines essential for TSMC’s chips. A new book...

The Great AI Supercycle Has Begun.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley are calling it the next semiconductor supercycle — one that could last until 2030.
From surging AI chip demand to record memory prices, the race for capacity is redrawing global alliances.

This week on Inside Taiwan:

🔹 Samsung’s Strategic Win — How it became AMD and OpenAI’s key HBM supplier
🔹 TSMC’s Central Role — Still the irreplaceable foundry behind every AI alliance
🔹 The Memory Boom — DRAM prices up 4×, inventory down to just three weeks
🔹 Taiwan’s Geopolitical Resilience — How it’s diversifying away from Chinese ra...

TSMC’s Record Quarter and the Global Race for AI Power

AI momentum shows no sign of slowing, but geopolitics is catching up fast.
This week on Inside Taiwan, we connect the dots across the world’s most valuable supply chain, from new rare earth export rules in Beijing to TSMC’s record-breaking quarter and Intel’s brutally honest reflection on how it lost its edge.

🔹 TSMC’s record quarter: What its 2-nanometer ramp and its 58% margins reveal about the next three years of the AI boom
🔹 China’s rare earth control: A microscopic rule w...

A trillion dollars, that’s the estimated cost of building the AI infrastructure powering this new era.

Today on Inside Taiwan, we connect the dots across the world’s most valuable AI supply chain, from the data-center gold rush to the cultural foundations of deep-tech innovation.

🔹 AI financing flywheel: how NVIDIA’s “circular financing” fuels OpenAI, xAI, and CoreWeave
🔹 Two-speed supply chain: why advanced AI chips soar while mature foundries tighten margins
🔹 ASML & TSMC’s AI moat: the co-development culture no one else can replicate
🔹 AI and work: how automation is rewriting early-career opportuniti...

In this episode, we go beyond the buzzwords of “Chip War” to uncover a deeper truth: Taiwan’s semiconductor rise wasn’t built on conflict, but on survival, collaboration, and shared value.

We trace this story through:

Markets are strong, AI partnerships are influencing the semiconductor landscape, and Taiwan remains a key player.

In this episode of Inside Taiwan, we unpack:

The AI gold rush is fueling record highs in semiconductor stocks, but cracks are appearing beneath the surface. In this debut episode of Inside Taiwan, we dive into the paradox shaping markets today: Wall Street euphoria versus economic warning signs.

We trace the story from recent headlines, TSMC’s advanced packaging bottleneck, Intel’s reported foundry discussions, and Samsung’s mega-bet on HBM memory, back to the pioneers who built Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem brick by brick. Along the way, we uncover how Taiwan’s “chip peace” philosophy, Japan’s rising partnership, and a looming $1.5 trillion funding...

The AI gold rush is here, but the real story lies deeper in the supply chain.

In this debut episode of Inside Taiwan, we trace the invisible engine powering the AI boom: Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem. From TSMC’s CoWoS packaging bottleneck to the soaring demand for silicon IP and the emerging Taiwan-Japan supply-chain alliance, every link in the chain is reshaping how technology and money flow. 

You’ll discover: