Nvidia is sinking its roots deep into Taiwan's industrial landscape, expanding its artificial intelligence partnership beyond flagship chipmaker TSMC to include fabless designer MediaTek. With the company's core AI product lineup — from data-center AI chips and racks to AI PCs that have reinvented the 40-year-old Windows PC — increasingly produced around Taiwan, the island is emerging as the epicenter of the AI revolution, observers say.
At a press briefing held during Computex 2026 in Taipei on Tuesday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang outlined a strategy of mutual growth, pledging to broaden cooperation with Taiwanese firms and expand local hiring. Huang made clear that Taiwan is the critical starting point of the global AI revolution. "The AI supply chain must be resilient, and from that perspective, Taiwan is the most amazing strategic partner," he said.
Huang also highlighted Nvidia's emergence as the largest customer and a key employer in Taiwan's industrial ecosystem. "We are now the biggest buyer of any company within the Taiwan ecosystem," he said. Nvidia has more than doubled its production capacity for the next-generation "Vera Rubin" AI chip through Taiwan's industrial network, securing its position as the island's top buyer. "We currently have about 1,000 employees in Taiwan, but we are building a massive facility to house 4,000 people in order to hire several thousand more," he added.
Having anchored itself in Taiwan, Nvidia is extending its influence beyond chip manufacturing into design. The centerpiece is its use of TSMC's most advanced 2-nanometer process to produce its latest AI chips. Going further, the company has co-developed with MediaTek the "N1X" system-on-chip that powers the "RTX Spark," an AI PC optimized for running AI agents.
At the briefing, Huang invited MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai on stage and recounted the collaboration: "To create the first agent computer, I called Rick directly and proposed that we develop a super chip for AI PCs together." Tsai responded, "After hundreds of brilliant engineers from both companies poured their sweat and blood into this for two years, we have produced a glamorous product that fits AI perfectly."
Huang also said that following the N1X chip for AI PCs unveiled the previous day at GTC Taipei, plans are in place to develop the N2X and N3X, as well as a lighter version called the N1.
