Taiwan’s power consumption is to increase faster at an annual compound growth rate of 2.5 percent over the next five years, mainly driven by an eightfold surge in electricity usage by artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the Energy Administration said yesterday.
The latest forecast represented an increase from the 2 percent growth estimated last year for the period from last year through 2029.
The annual growth rate from this year to 2033 is expected to reach 2.8 percent as new data centers for AI applications become operational, the administration said in a report.
Photo: CNA
The increase in demand comes as Taiwan is expected to undergo a strong economic recovery this year, the semiconductor industry expands capacity amid an AI boom and electric vehicles become more popular, the report said.
AI applications including AI-focused data centers would consume about 2.24 gigawatts (GW) of power in 2028, expanding eightfold from 240 megawatts last year, the administration said.
The latest forecast factored in the expected deployment of new data centers, likely from Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Amazon Web Services, in addition to existing centers operated by Google, Microsoft Corp and Nvidia.
Photo: Lin Jin-hua, Taipei Times
“Because of AI, Taiwan has to add 12 to 13 percent more capacity during peak load during the 2024-2029 period,” Energy Administration Director-General Yu Cheng-wei (游振偉) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The administration identified this year to 2028 as the critical period when electricity consumption would spike due to rapid uptakes of AI data centers, large-language AI training models and supercomputer centers, which have not been included in the administration’s forecast before.
Peak load demand is expected to expand to about 4.21GW at night from 3.73GW this year, the administration said.
To ensure stable and sufficient supply, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) would install more natural-gas generators, enhance electricity grid resilience by revamping electrical substations and expand green energy storage systems, Yu said.
He urged the public to support CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣中油) deployments of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals to regasify LNG before sending it to power stations.
The construction of new LNG terminals was suspended amid environmental concerns.
Taipower projected its reserve margin would improve to 13.3 percent in 2028 from 8.5 percent this year.
That figure is expected to climb to 23.8 percent in 2033, indicating that its electricity capacity would outgrow demand, or capacity adequacy, the state-run utility said.
Asked if the administration would consider restarting or delaying the shutdown of nuclear power plants, Yu said the administration would respect the legislature’s decision on the matter.
Renewable energy is to account for 20 percent of the total power supply in November 2026, rather than the government’s 2025 target, the third time the government has pushed back the goal.
Yu blamed a surge in power consumption for the delays, but said the deployment of renewable energy generation remains on track.
By the end of 2029, green energy is projected to make up about 25 percent of the total power supply, down from 27 percent estimated last year, largely due to increases in total power supply, the report said.
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
The entry of chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) into the elite club of the world’s most valuable companies is further proof that the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is shaking up Wall Street. TSMC, which is listed in Taipei and New York, on Monday briefly broke the US$1-trillion market capitalization barrier, putting it ahead of Tesla Inc as the seventh-most valuable technology giant on the stock market. Also on Monday, Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Meta Platforms Inc hit all-time highs. The top 10 of the world’s most valuable companies is headed by Microsoft Corp and Apple, closely followed by
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with