Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) has applied to set up a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan as part of the government’s “A+ Industrial Innovative R&D Program,” the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry did not disclose the investment amount or what the plan is.
The program covers three major fields — artificial intelligence (AI), new generation semiconductors, including high-power and high-frequency integrated circuits (ICs), and new 5G network structures.
Photo: Dado Ruvic, Reuters
It aims to encourage local and foreign technology firms to invest in Taiwan and for the nation to become a global R&D hub, the Executive Yuan said.
A qualified applicant would receive a subsidy worth up to 50 percent of its investment.
AMD is planning to invest about NT$5 billion (US$155 million) and the ministry has given the company conditions that must be met to receive the subsidy, local media reported, citing an unnamed government source.
AMD was to work with Taiwanese IC designers to develop the domestic IC industry, the source said, adding that the servers which use its AI chips would also be produced in Taiwan.
The ministry also required AMD to recruit enough foreign talent to account for at least 20 percent of its R&D workforce in Taiwan, so that the tech giant would not have to compete with Taiwanese firms for local talent, the source said.
The source said that the ministry wanted AMD to work with Taiwanese universities to help cultivate talent.
AMD has responded positively to the ministry’s conditions, the source added.
AMD CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is scheduled to attend the Computex Taipei trade show early next month and is expected to discuss R&D plans with the administration of President William Lai (賴清德), who was sworn yesterday, local media reports said.
The ministry has approved several investment applications filed by several tech heavyweights wanting to invest in Taiwan under the program.
Investors include Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV, US wafer fabrication equipment supplier Lam Research Corp and US semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc.
In 2021, US chip giant Nvidia Corp secured approval for its investment plan under the “Supreme A+ Program.”
The AI innovation and R&D center program, which began in 2020, aims to attract innovators to invest in state-of-the-art technologies relating to semiconductors, communications and AI in Taiwan.
Nvidia’s investment plan aimed to set up an AI R&D center through a NT$24.3 billion investment, with the ministry providing a subsidy worth NT$6.7 billion. The company is to cooperate with enterprises and universities through its investments.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
RSS