The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said reports of global tech firms cutting dependence on Taiwan-made chips were inaccurate, after chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) issued a clarification emphasizing it would expand its business based on Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain.
“The recent reports on the global supply chain shifting away from Taiwan are inaccurate and MediaTek Inc has pointed out the mistake in a filing,” the ministry said, responding to news reports that global tech firms would require their chip suppliers to have multiple sources to cut dependence on Taiwan amid rising US-China trade tensions.
The reports cited MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行).
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
The Hsinchu-based company, which designs chips used in smartphones, laptops and other technology applications, said in the filing that it has no intention of moving away from Taiwan in any way, but would continue to invest in the nation and work with existing partners in its bid to expand in overseas markets.
As the world’s fourth-largest chip company, MediaTek always has multiple suppliers to serve a global clientele, it said, adding that its investment and procurement spending in Taiwan amounts to NT$300 billion (US$9.64 billion) a year.
MediaTek would seek to gain customers and business globally based on Taiwan’s robust semiconductor supply chain, it said.
The ministry said that Taiwan has a well-established and irreplaceable semiconductor ecosystem that encompasses upstream, midstream and downstream players, and has cultivated semiconductor talent for more than 40 years.
The investment environment in Taiwan is safe and built upon a democratic legal system that would continue to attract companies from global semiconductor supply chains, the ministry said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest chipmaker, whose clients include Apple Inc, MediaTek, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Nvidia Corp and Intel Corp, has reiterated its commitment to keeping advanced manufacturing technologies in Taiwan after announcing plans to add capacity in Hsinchu and Kaohsiung, the ministry said.
International firms have followed suit.
US semiconductor equipment manufacturer Applied Materials Inc in 2019 set up a manufacturing center and a research lab in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區), while Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML Holding NV in 2020 launched a global extreme ultraviolet training center for engineers in the same park, the ministry said.
Entegris Inc, a supplier of advanced materials and process solutions for the semiconductor industry and other high-tech sectors, is expanding its investment in a new advanced manufacturing facility in Kaohsiung to about US$500 million in three years, while German science and technology company Merck Group has unveiled plans to spend US$600 million expanding its manufacturing and research investment in Taiwan over the next five to seven years, the ministry said.
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
SMALL AND EFFICIENT: The Chinese AI app’s initial success has spurred worries in the US that its tech giants’ massive AI spending needs re-evaluation, a market strategist said Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) eponymous AI assistant rocketed to the top of Apple Inc’s iPhone download charts, stirring doubts in Silicon Valley about the strength of the US’ technological dominance. The app’s underlying AI model is widely seen as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc’s latest. Its claim that it cost much less to train and develop triggered share moves across Asia’s supply chain. Chinese tech firms linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek Co (科大訊飛), surged yesterday, while chipmaking tool makers like Advantest Corp slumped on the potential threat to demand for Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators. US stock
SUBSIDIES: The nominee for commerce secretary indicated the Trump administration wants to put its stamp on the plan, but not unravel it entirely US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency in charge of a US$52 billion semiconductor subsidy program declined to give it unqualified support, raising questions about the disbursement of funds to companies like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). “I can’t say that I can honor something I haven’t read,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said of the binding CHIPS and Science Act awards in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “To the extent monies have been disbursed, I would commit to rigorously enforcing documents that have been signed by those companies to make sure we get
UNUSUAL TIMING: The success of DeepSeek has prompted a scramble among its domestic competitors to upgrade their own AI models Chinese technology company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence (AI) model that it said surpassed the highly acclaimed DeepSeek-V3. The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max’s release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition. “Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms ... almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B,” Alibaba’s cloud unit said in
RSS