Wiwynn Corp (緯穎), a supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers and components, yesterday said it more than tripled its capital expenditure for this year to NT$18 billion (US$548.2 million) in its latest efforts to expand its global manufacturing footprint amid a growing requirement to divert production away from Mexico due to tariff hikes by the US.
That compared with a budget of NT$5 billion last year. This year’s outlay primarily aims to fund the construction of a newly announced US$300 million factory in Texas and a new factory in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹), which is under construction, as well as additional capacity expansions at existing plants in Mexico and Malaysia, Wiwynn chief financial officer Harry Chen (陳昌偉) told investors.
“We have to equip ourselves with countermeasures in response to the capricious [tariff] situation,” Chen said. “Any changes in US tariffs policy will not sway our decisions to build a US fab.”
Photo: Nathan Laine, Bloomberg
Wiwynn did not aim to make the Texas fab a substitute for its Mexican plants, but to offer an extra option for customers and greater flexibility in choosing manufacturing sites to help them address the tariffs issue, Chen said.
Some customers requested to stop delivering servers from Mexico entirely and to shift production to Wiwynn’s factories in the Czech Republic or Malaysia, while some customers chose to pay 25 percent tariffs and stick to their original production plans in Mexico, he said.
Mexico is a major server manufacturing hub for Wiwynn, making up about 70 percent of its total server capacity.
Wiwynn yesterday gave an upbeat business outlook, fueled by strong demand from the world’s major cloud service providers (CSP), which plan to expand capital expenditure by a double-digit percent this year versus last year. Wiwynn counts US-based CSPs Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp among its major clients.
On top of that, the company said it is scheduled to ship GB200-powered AI servers later this quarter as requested by its customers. That would mark the first time Wiwynn has tapped into the AI server market based on Nvidia Corp’s AI chips.
“We are bullish about customers’ demand in 2025 on the back of strong capital expenditure by CSPs,” Chen said. “Both AI servers and general-purpose servers are growing this year.”
With the takeoff of generative AI applications, servers have become an essential item for CSPs, Chen said.
None of them can afford risking operating under insufficient computing power and scant memory storage, he added.
“AI-related demand is sustaining. It is not just a short-lived [phenomenon],” Chen said.
Strong revenue last month reinforced the company’s positive view, he said.
Revenue last month surged 91.22 percent year-on-year to a new record high of NT$46.51 billion, he said.
That brought revenue in the first two months of this year to NT$84.02 billion, a spike of 95 percent from the same period last year.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
RSS