Taiwan flexed its muscle as a global artificial intelligence (AI) hub once again at Asia's largest information technology exhibition, "Computex Taipei 2026." Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia and the star of the event, along with heavyweight partners including SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, all sent love calls to Taiwan's industry to strengthen the AI supply chain.
According to industry sources on the 3rd, Chairman Chey met with reporters at the SK hynix booth at Taipei's Nangang Exhibition Center the day before Computex opened and said, "The more we expand our AI business, the better and the more Taiwanese partnerships we need. I came in person this time to see how our partners are doing and where the partnership will go from here."
"Beyond semiconductors, we need many Taiwanese partners and R&D capabilities to build more AI factories," Chey said. "Taiwan seems to be more focused on this field (AI) and is capturing the current AI momentum very well."
Notably, Chey declared, "We will double our (memory) capacity over the next five years," signaling intent to draw closer to TSMC, its largest foundry partner. He also cited electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn and PC maker Acer as key partners.
Acer, a core DRAM customer, also offers strong potential for expanded mutual cooperation. Foxconn, as an AI server maker, works directly with Nvidia rather than SK hynix, but Chey appears intent on increasing points of contact to expand the AI ecosystem led by the two companies.
Huang also expressed his affection for Taiwan. At a global media briefing held at a hotel near the Nangang Exhibition Center on the 2nd, he invited Rick Tsai, CEO of global fabless firm MediaTek, as a special guest for a dialogue. Huang named MediaTek as a key partner for "RTX Spark," the AI PC unveiled at the event, saying, "The reason Nvidia chose to partner with MediaTek is that their engineering is world-class in every respect, and we confirmed that through our partnership."
Leveraging its past PC and electronics manufacturing capabilities and a robust ecosystem of mid-sized and small enterprises, Taiwan boasts strong players across the semiconductor field — not only TSMC in foundry, but also fabless firms such as MediaTek and Novatek, as well as back-end packaging companies. As a result, it ranks first or second in global market share across all three major semiconductor processes: design, production, and back-end. Computex, once a PC and electronics show, has rapidly emerged as Asia's largest AI exhibition in just a few years thanks to Big Tech players, including Nvidia, focusing on this Taiwanese industrial ecosystem.
