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The Economist

Why Is NVIDIA Building an AI Supercomputer in Taiwan? Inside the Foxconn Partnership

by 콘텐츠8359 2025. 5. 21.

In a move that could redefine the global AI infrastructure landscape, NVIDIA has announced a strategic partnership with Foxconn to build a massive AI supercomputer hub in Taiwan.

This isn’t just about tech giants joining forces—it’s a geopolitical signal, a commercial expansion, and a glimpse into where the future of AI processing power is headed.

 


🔹 Why Taiwan Matters

Taiwan sits at the very heart of the global semiconductor industry. It's home to TSMC, the world’s leading chip foundry, and Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer. By choosing Taiwan as the site of its next AI powerhouse, NVIDIA is strategically positioning itself near the beating heart of hardware innovation.

Additionally, the Taiwanese government is backing this initiative as part of a broader national AI strategy. That means policy, infrastructure, and capital are aligning to make this project thrive.


🔹 What Is This AI Supercomputer?

This isn’t your average data center.

  • Initial capacity: 20 megawatts
  • Planned expansion: up to 100 megawatts
  • Powered by NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPU architecture
  • Built specifically for high-performance AI training and inference tasks

Think of it as a neural powerhouse, capable of training massive AI models for everything from robotics and language processing to autonomous driving.


🔹 What’s In It for NVIDIA and Foxconn?

This project isn’t just about flexing technological muscle.

  • NVIDIA gets to showcase its cutting-edge chips in a dedicated environment and move from a component supplier to an AI infrastructure leader.
  • Foxconn expands beyond assembly into AI infrastructure services, opening new revenue streams.
  • Together, they’re building a turnkey AI ecosystem—hardware, compute, and services under one roof.

🔹 A Global Play: Why the U.S. Should Pay Attention

This move has big implications for the U.S. tech industry.

  • U.S.-based AI startups and research institutions may increasingly rely on overseas infrastructure like this one for model training.
  • The geopolitical significance of Taiwan grows, especially as AI and chip technology become national priorities.
  • American cloud providers and chipmakers may need to consider how to compete—or collaborate—with such emerging hubs.


🔹 Big Picture: From Chips to Ecosystems

NVIDIA’s recent initiatives—including NVLink Fusion (a hybrid platform that connects NVIDIA GPUs with CPUs from competitors) and DGX Spark (personal AI supercomputers)—reveal a clear strategy.

They’re no longer just building better chips—they're building the AI factories of the future.

This Taiwan project is the embodiment of that strategy: a tightly integrated AI supply chain, from silicon to software.


📊 Summary Table

AspectDetails
Location Taiwan
Partners NVIDIA, Foxconn, TSMC, Taiwanese Government
Technology Blackwell GPUs, AI Supercomputing
Power Scale 20MW → 100MW+
Strategic Impact AI ecosystem leadership in Asia & globally
 

✅ Final Thoughts

The NVIDIA–Foxconn collaboration marks a new era of AI industrialization. For American businesses, researchers, and policymakers, it’s a wake-up call: AI infrastructure is the new oil, and the race to secure it is global.

As the U.S. ramps up its own investments in AI and chip manufacturing, keeping an eye on Taiwan’s emerging AI infrastructure will be more important than ever.