Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is expected to see its production value grow by 16.5 percent next year to top NT$6.17 trillion (US$192.28 billion) for the first time, fueled by sustained demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices such as servers and data centers, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) said yesterday.
That meant Taiwan would outpace the global semiconductor industry, which is expected to expand by 12.5 percent in production value to US$684 billion next year, according to the institute.
Taiwan’s foundry sector would be the biggest beneficiary of this AI boom, with an annual expansion of 20.1 percent in production value next year to NT$3.86 trillion, Terry Fan (范哲豪), a semiconductor analyst with ITRI’s Science and Technology International Strategy Center, said at an industry forum in Taipei.
Photo: RITCHIE B. TONGO, EPA-EFE
The foundry sector’s production value would reach NT$28.60 billion next year, thanks largely to robust demand for advanced technologies including 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer chips, Fan said.
“The rise of generative AI is stimulating demand for HPC devices that are powered by advanced chips,” Fan said. “That is reflected in the fact that more than half of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) wafer revenue came from HPC chips.”
TSMC is a major supplier of 3-nanometer technology in the industry and would be the world’s first to offer 2-nanometer technology next year, the company said.
The production value of local chip packaging and testing service providers next year is projected to grow 12.7 percent to NT$700 billion, an all-time high, as firms use advanced technologies, primarily 2.5-dimension chip-on-wafer-on-substrate technology, to package advanced chips used in AI and HPC devices, Fan said.
A recovery in sales of smartphones, PCs and other consumer electronics would also propel growth, he said.
Globally, the advanced packaging market next year would surpass the traditional chip packaging market for the first time and would make up about 51 percent of the total chip packaging market, the institute projected.
ITRI yesterday also raised its growth forecast for the nation’s semiconductor producers to 22 percent, or NT$5.3 trillion, up from its previous estimate of 17.7 percent. This would be the highest year-on-year increase since 2021.
It attributed the upward adjustment to faster-than-expected growth in the foundry sector, which is expected to see production value grow 27.5 percent this year, compared with an earlier estimate of 20.2 percent growth, the institute said.
Local chip designers are also expected to grow at a faster rate of 16.5 percent this year, up from the previous estimate of 5.1 percent, it added.
However, the institute trimmed its growth forecasts for chip packagers and chip testers to 8.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively this year, down from previous estimates of 10.5 percent and 13.3 percent.
Shiina Ito has had fewer Chinese customers at her Tokyo jewelry shop since Beijing issued a travel warning in the wake of a diplomatic spat, but she said she was not concerned. A souring of Tokyo-Beijing relations this month, following remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan, has fueled concerns about the impact on the ritzy boutiques, noodle joints and hotels where holidaymakers spend their cash. However, businesses in Tokyo largely shrugged off any anxiety. “Since there are fewer Chinese customers, it’s become a bit easier for Japanese shoppers to visit, so our sales haven’t really dropped,” Ito
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
OUTLOOK: Pat Gelsinger said he did not expect the heavy AI infrastructure investments by the major cloud service providers to cause an AI bubble to burst soon Building a resilient energy supply chain is crucial for Taiwan to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology and grow its economy, former Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger said yesterday. Gelsinger, now a general partner at the US venture capital firm Playground Global LLC, was asked at a news conference in Taipei about his views on Taiwan’s hardware development and growing concern over an AI bubble. “Today, the greatest issue in Taiwan isn’t even in the software or in architecture. It is energy,” Gelsinger said. “You are not in the position to have a resilient energy supply chain, and that,
RSS