Nvidia Corp, the world’s most valuable chipmaker, is “extremely likely” to invest in Europe, chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said.
Huang said European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said “that Nvidia should invest a great deal more in Europe and that Europe is going to be a wonderful place to build the future of Nvidia.”
The pair met on Friday as part of Breton’s discussions about content moderation and artificial intelligence with some of the largest tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Photo: Bloomberg
Nvidia’s value has jumped as its graphics processors have become the most popular for data centers needed to power generative artificial intelligence. The company’s sales in its data center unit gained 41 percent to US$15 billion last year.
At the same time, the US, the EU, Japan and India have agreed to spend more than US$100 billion in subsidies to attract the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc.
Intel last week announced plans for new plants in Germany, Israel and Poland, spurred by government incentives.
Nvidia would also look to invest in Europe, Huang said.
“The reason for that is Nvidia would like to be a global international company and what a better place to — and [who] can imagine a better place to invest,” he told reporters after meeting with Breton.
Breton invited Huang to continue the discussion in Brussels next month.
While the semiconductor industry still faces inventory adjustment issues in the second quarter, some IC designers are expected to benefit from the launch of new products, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said last week.
In particular, Nvidia is expected to see sales grow further in the second quarter because of its development of AI-related chips, and it could take the top spot in the global IC design market, TrendForce said.
Nvidia’s revenue in the first quarter rose 13.5 percent from a quarter earlier to US$6.73 billion.
That gave it a 19.9 percent share of the global IC design market to rank third-largest, TrendForce said in a report on Tuesday.
Smartphone IC designer Qualcomm Inc led this sector with revenue of US$7.94 billion, up 0.6 percent from a quarter earlier, giving it a 23.5 percent market share.
Wireless and broadband communication IC designer Broadcom Corp took the second spot with US$6.91 billion in revenue in the quarter, down 2.7 percent from a quarter earlier, to secure a 20.4 percent market share.
IC designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc ranked fourth with a market share of 15.8 percent on sales of US$5.35 billion, while MediaTek Inc (聯發科) remained the fifth-largest with sales of US$3.15 billion and a 9.3 percent market share, TrendForce said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
TOP PERFORMER: The computer and optical products sector’s annual increase in output of 31.84 percent was the largest among Taiwan’s six major industries The industrial production index last month increased 16.06 percent year-on-year, rising for a third consecutive month as local manufacturing continued to boom, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Industrial production measures the change in the value of output produced by the local manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors. Last month’s growth, the largest annual expansion in 34 months, came as increases in manufacturing output, water supply, and electricity and gas production more than offset a retreat in mining output, the ministry said in a report. Manufacturing output, which accounted for 95.39 percent of the industrial production index, also rose for a third consecutive
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there