Several Taiwanese news outlets have reported on the possibility of Nvidia opening a second AI research and development center on the island. The company set up its first AI Innovation R&D center in Neihu, Taipei in 2022. Now a rumor is circulating that the green team will work with Foxconn to build a second research center in Kaohsiung Software Park, in the south.
Taiwan Television reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived early for Computex 2024 for a meeting with TSMC leadership and other key supply chain leaders. There were also whispers that he met with Taiwan's new President, William Lai, to talk about a second R&D center in Tainan or Kaohsiung.
While we don’t have any confirmation yet, this could be a possible answer to AMD’s recently divulged plans to open an R&D center in Taiwan. These developments may be quite surprising, as Taiwan is currently at the center of the US-China chip war, to the point that TSMC, the island’s top corporation, has equipped a remote self-destruct function to its factories in case of war.
It still makes sense for companies to build research and development centers in Taiwan, though, especially as it makes 90% of the AI servers deployed around the globe. Setting up near major suppliers, like TSMC, could make logistics easier and streamline operations.
However, Zhou Chongbin, the Deputy Director of the Industrial Technology Department says that Nvidia currently has just one AI R&D center in Taiwan, and that there are no official plans, or ongoing talks, regarding a second one. According to the Commercial Times, Chongbin said that Nvidia is slated to build the ‘Taipei-1’ AI supercomputer in Kaohsiung, which is not an R&D center. The R&D center rumor might thus be a simple misinterpretation of the plans to build Taipei-1 with Foxconn.
But even if the talk about a secondary Nvidia research center news may not be substantiated yet, Taiwanese officials are already happy to hear that the company is considering more inward investment. And with the AI boom fueling Nvidia’s growth, it’s not farfetched for it to invest in another facility to help the company grow even further. After all, Nvidia has to put its money somewhere after hitting record results in 2023 and 24Q1 amid the surge in demand for GPUs.
