The heads of some of the biggest names in the chip making business were seen together at the Ningxia night market in Taiwan. It looks like that Huang took TSMC founder Morris Chang, MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai, Quanta head Barry Lam, and renowned architect Kris Yao with him for dinner. This get together happened on the eve of Computex 2024, and the group were mobbed by fans and the media in this rare public outing.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is known to go out publicly and was spotted late last year eating street food in Vietnam, after discussing potential investments in the country with government leaders and company executives in Hanoi.
🌃✨ Iconic night in Taipei with industry legends! NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, TSMC founder Morris Chang, Quanta Computer founder Barry Lam, & architect Kris Yao hit Ningxia Night Market 🍜🎉 A first for Chang! pic.twitter.com/QhrH9QNYf0May 30, 2024
Many of us know Nvidia as the largest supplier of graphics cards, and has also recently become the third most valuable company in the world due to the recent boom in AI tech. TSMC has also recently been in the news as becoming the most valuable semiconductor company, so much so that it had added self-destruct functions to its fabs in case of a foreign invasion. Kris Yao, who joined the group for dinner, is also one of Taiwan’s leading architects, and has designed several iconic buildings globally, including three TSMC facilities and the Quanta Research and Development Center.
MediaTek was also at the dinner table. Although lesser known than Qualcomm, the company has a major presence in the smartphone space, where it has a 36% SoC market share as of 23Q4. Furthermore, MediaTek has already worked with the company to roll out processors for automobiles that use Nvidia graphics. With the rumors of Nvidia wanting to develop Arm CPUs for Windows computers, MediaTek could be the company’s way into desktop and laptop computing, especially after its failed bid to acquire Arm in 2022. Last, but not least, we also saw the Quanta head with the group. Quanta Computer is a major Taiwan-based OEM laptop manufacturer. Some of its clients include the largest laptop brands in the world, including Apple, Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and Microsoft.
No statements were made at that time, although Huang said that Taiwan is “one of the most important countries in the world.” However, this informal meeting adds more fuel to the rumor mill surrounding Nvidia’s plans. For example, there has been some talk about the company opening a second AI R&D center in Taiwan. So, it makes sense to have TSMC onboard this project, especially as Nvidia needs it to make its AI chips. If it plans to put a new building, then it needs to have an architect — and who else would be better suited for the job than someone who TSMC has worked with before?
There have also been reports of Nvidia working with MediaTek and Intel to build Arm-based CPUs for mobile computing. If you add Quanta into the mix, then this news starts to sound more credible, even though we haven’t received any official confirmation yet.
This public spectacle could be a sign of things to come for Nvidia. After all, informal deals made over the dinner table between heads of big companies could be just as binding, if not more so, than official announcements. Or it could just be a quick dinner between friends and acquaintances who happen to have some free time before one of the biggest tech expos in the world.
