From Taipei, where the world’s chips are born, we decode the week’s biggest semiconductor shifts. This episode examines a new frontier in the global AI supply chain. It is no longer about GPUs alone. It is about the electricity, cooling, and infrastructure required to run them. Taiwan sits at the center of this transition, shaping both the hardware and the systems that will define the next decade of AI.
Q: Why is energy becoming the new bottleneck in the AI supply chain?
OpenAI is reportedly exploring plans for 250 gigawatts of computing capacity by 2033. That is enough electricity to power India and would require 60 million units of Nvidia’s GB200 GPUs over several upgrade cycles. Deloitte notes that AI workloads are doubling energy consumption, pushing data centers past thermal limits. Electricity prices in the United States have risen 267 percent since 2019. The industry is hitting a thermal wall, where traditional cooling no longer works, and new infrastructure becomes essential.
Q: How is Taiwan responding to this energy and infrastructure challenge?
Cloud Leopard Energy doubled revenue through long-term renewable contracts with companies such as ASE Technology. To solve intermittency, it is investing in large-scale battery storage. Taiwan’s ODM leaders are also securing multi-year AI server orders. Quanta has visibility through 2027 with triple-digit AI server growth. Gigabyte’s order book extends through 2026. These commitments indicate that global cloud providers are locking in Taiwan’s capacity for years ahead.
Q: Why is Taiwan considered the epicenter of the next AI hardware wave?
Deloitte’s 2025 Global TMT Outlook cites generative AI and geopolitics as the two forces reshaping supply chains. Taiwan leads in advanced packaging technologies such as CoWoS and sits at the strategic intersection of U.S. and global cloud expansion. To maintain this lead, Taiwan is investing in silicon photonics, quantum technology, and other frontier domains aligned with its New Ten AI Initiatives. The competition is increasingly about talent and R&D depth, rather than assembly scale alone.
Listen to the full episode of Inside Taiwan for a ten-minute briefing on how power, cooling, and infrastructure are becoming the defining constraints of the AI century, and how Taiwan’s supply chain is responding with speed and scale.
【About the Show】
Inside Taiwan distills 200 stories a day from over 30 trusted Traditional Chinese and English sources into a ten-minute executive briefing. It is an AI-powered signal over noise for global investors and decision-makers navigating the world’s most valuable supply chain.
Keywords with hashtags
#TaiwanSemiconductor #AIsupplychain #GlobalChipManufacturing #TSMC #Nvidia #AIservers #CoWoS #AdvancedPackaging #AIenergy #LiquidCooling #HVDC #SovereignAI #AIInfrastructure #GlobalSupplyChain #TechGeopolitics