(Bloomberg) — Nvidia Inc.’s Jensen Huang is scheduled to deliver a speech this Sunday to mark the unofficial opening of Taiwan’s annual electronics trade show, COMPUTEX 2024, which will be the biggest event ever.
The Tainan-born CEO is a frequent visitor to his native island, and this year he will be accompanied by representatives from nearly every major U.S. chip company vying to close the gap on Nvidia in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip race. Advanced Micro Devices' Lisa Su, Intel's Pat Gelsinger, Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon and Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas are all scheduled to give keynote speeches in Taipei over the next week.
Taiwan's semiconductor dominance is at an all-time high, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) making Apple's iPhone chips, NVIDIA's essential AI accelerators, AMD's competitors, and most of the Arm chips that power the global mobile market. The road to AI breakthroughs is paved with semiconductors and servers, many of which are manufactured or assembled in Taiwan.
“Last year, we were already on a roll because of AI, and this year, we're exploding because AI is accelerating,” said James C. F. Huang, chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), which runs COMPUTEX. “We're like a giant magnet.”
“Only in Taiwan”
Taiwan's most valuable company is also courted by global superpowers, with the United States and Japan spending billions of dollars in subsidies and aid to lure TSMC's chip factories to their countries. But TSMC is only the most visible part of a vast semiconductor ecosystem that helps international customers meet their chip needs in one place. Taiwan is turning its depth of vital expertise into a so-called technology diplomacy policy.
Read more: Taiwan stands out as Asia's AI canary
At last year's Computex media event, Nvidia's Huang showed off a slew of the company's AI hardware, from its H100 AI chips to its integrated server rack modules and proprietary technology that lets multiple components function like one unified computer. Asked if all those parts were made in Taiwan, Huang said yes. Taiwan's advantage has a lot to do with the fact that neither Intel nor Samsung Electronics Co. can match TSMC's technology leadership and manufacturing reliability.
Jensen Huang's arrival in Taipei a week before the Taipei Computex expo was greeted with the usual excitement for a home-grown rock-star CEO, sending the company's stock price to an all-time high on the Taipei Stock Exchange. Reports that Nvidia is partnering with chipmaker MediaTek on AI processors also boosted the Taiwanese company's shares.
TAITRA's Huang said the AI hardware supply chain, from chips to motherboards to server assembly, is all concentrated in Taiwan, making it an efficient one-stop shop for major tech companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. to purchase hardware.
“That's why they all had to come. You couldn't find this in Seoul, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin or Singapore. Only in Taiwan,” James Huang said.
The emergence of AI PCs
Qualcomm will play the role of disruptor at Computex this year, as its Snapdragon chips feature heavily in Microsoft's new breed of Copilot+ PCs, the show's most hyped product. These so-called AI PCs will be loaded with Microsoft's latest and greatest AI features, such as Recall, which stores a searchable visual history of everything you do, and they'll shun Intel and AMD for Qualcomm silicon. Everyone from Asustek Computer Inc. to Lenovo Group and Dell Technologies will show off such products.
Until recently, Computex was colloquially known as the “Wintel” showcase, reflecting the fact that most PCs were powered by Microsoft's Windows and Intel. With Microsoft choosing to move to Arm-based Qualcomm chips in its partner's latest laptops, the long-awaited transition away from Intel may finally be happening. Apple made a similar move by switching to its own silicon chips, resulting in improved battery life and thermal performance for its MacBooks. High expectations are high for Qualcomm.
Read more: Qualcomm bets on AI to dethrone Intel from PC throne: Tech Daily
Both Su and Gelsinger will face tough challenges as they play catch-up: Gelsinger's Intel is losing PC-making partners after Apple's sales plummeted, and it has yet to lay out a detailed plan for regaining lost ground in the AI race, while AMD continues to lag Nvidia in AI training accelerators.
Arm is expected to make more announcements at the show than its previous ones, which were limited to discussing existing products in the lead-up to the SoftBank Group Corp. company's initial public offering. Arm is trying to position itself as a leader in on-device AI, including Qualcomm's AI-powered PCs and upcoming smartphones. The company's shares have risen more than 140% since its first public offering in September.
TAITRA started Computex in 1981 as a computer parts exhibition. Over the years, the show has evolved into a showcase for the latest trends in areas such as mobile technology, data center hardware, and now AI. More than 1,500 companies and 50,000 visitors are expected to participate. Organizers have confirmed that Taiwan's new President, Lai Ching-te, will also attend the opening ceremony on June 4.
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