Inside Taiwan

A trillion-dollar power shift is underway in the world of AI chips — and this week, the fault lines moved. In this episode of Inside Taiwan, host Fiona Chou breaks down Tesla’s landmark $16.5 billion AI-chip partnership with Samsung — a move that could reshape the semiconductor supply chain and challenge TSMC’s dominance. From Seoul to Silicon Valley, we trace how this deal signals a new era of AI...

The narrative around AI often focuses on model releases and product demos. But the real story is unfolding deeper in the stack: the physical, national, and computational infrastructure that determines who will lead the next era of technology. This week on Inside Taiwan, four developments reveal how quickly the landscape is shifting. In Seoul, Samsung crossed the 100,000-won milestone, driven by Hi...

Tesla confirmed that its next-generation AI chip will be manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung. This marks a meaningful shift in how the industry thinks about risk, capacity, and geographic concentration. For the past decade, the default strategy for the most advanced chips has been single-sourcing through TSMC. Their technical leadership, operational discipline, and economics made the decision st...

From the data center to the trading floor — the AI revolution is becoming real. In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I explore two stories that reveal how fast the next industrial era is being built: 🔹 CoreWeave’s CEO Mike Intrator explains the “relentless demand” for AI compute — and why he says this isn’t a bubble, but the start of a new economic infrastructure. 🔹 OpenAI’s “Project Mercury” aims to t...

If every nation wants to be an AI superpower… who actually controls the keys? Every country wants its own AI. It’s called Sovereign AI — the idea that true national independence in the next industrial era depends on owning your own AI stack, not renting it from Silicon Valley. But here’s the catch: building it means navigating an impossible supply chain controlled by a handful of players — Nvidia,...

The world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing is moving from Taiwan to American soil. Nvidia’s first U.S.-made Blackwell chip, produced in TSMC’s new Arizona fab, marks more than an industrial milestone — it may signal the birth of a new AI-driven economic era. In this episode of Inside Taiwan, I unpack: • What Mohamed El-Erian means by a “rational bubble” • Why TSMC Arizona is both a triu...

The next tech era isn’t being imagined — it’s being built. In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I explore how three Taiwanese powerhouses are shaping the foundation of the AI-driven global economy: 🔹 TSMC just posted record-breaking earnings — with AI and high-performance computing now driving over half of its revenue. 🔹 Foxconn (Hon Hai), for the first time, earns more from AI servers than from iPhone...

TSMC just posted record-breaking profits — a signal that the AI boom isn’t slowing down. Behind it lies a complex web of trillion-dollar partnerships: OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank are reshaping the economics of computing itself. In this week’s Inside Taiwan, I unpack how: TSMC’s record profits reflect the AI infrastructure supercycle. OpenAI’s trillion-dollar funding web reveals a new mode...

In this episode of Inside Taiwan, we uncover the hidden human and cultural forces behind two of the world’s most influential industries — bicycles and semiconductors. First, Taiwan’s Giant Manufacturing, a symbol of craftsmanship and pride, faces a stunning U.S. import detention order over allegations of forced labor. We unpack how recruitment fees and shifting global ESG standards have created ne...

The Great AI Supercycle Has Begun. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are calling it the next semiconductor supercycle — one that could last until 2030. From surging AI chip demand to record memory prices, the race for capacity is redrawing global alliances. This week on Inside Taiwan: 🔹 Samsung’s Strategic Win — How it became AMD and OpenAI’s key HBM supplier 🔹 TSMC’s Central Role — Still the irreplace...

TSMC’s Record Quarter and the Global Race for AI Power AI momentum shows no sign of slowing, but geopolitics is catching up fast. This week on Inside Taiwan, we connect the dots across the world’s most valuable supply chain, from new rare earth export rules in Beijing to TSMC’s record-breaking quarter and Intel’s brutally honest reflection on how it lost its edge. 🔹 TSMC’s record quarter: What it...

A trillion dollars, that’s the estimated cost of building the AI infrastructure powering this new era. Today on Inside Taiwan, we connect the dots across the world’s most valuable AI supply chain, from the data-center gold rush to the cultural foundations of deep-tech innovation. 🔹 AI financing flywheel: how NVIDIA’s “circular financing” fuels OpenAI, xAI, and CoreWeave 🔹 Two-speed supply chain:...

In this episode, we go beyond the buzzwords of “Chip War” to uncover a deeper truth: Taiwan’s semiconductor rise wasn’t built on conflict, but on survival, collaboration, and shared value. We trace this story through: The birth of TSMC’s pure-play foundry model, and how it unlocked the global fabless revolution. The 1970s pioneers who built Taiwan’s semiconductor foundation, including Dr. Shih Chi...

Markets are strong, AI partnerships are influencing the semiconductor landscape, and Taiwan remains a key player. In this episode of Inside Taiwan, we unpack: OpenAI’s multi-year partnership with AMD, a deal worth gigawatts of compute and tens of billions in potential revenue. Elon Musk’s reported $18B data-center push with xAI, and the 300,000 more Nvidia GPUs that come with it. Samsung and SK hy...

The AI gold rush is fueling record highs in semiconductor stocks, but cracks are appearing beneath the surface. In this debut episode of Inside Taiwan , we dive into the paradox shaping markets today: Wall Street euphoria versus economic warning signs. We trace the story from recent headlines, TSMC’s advanced packaging bottleneck, Intel’s reported foundry discussions, and Samsung’s mega-bet on HBM...

The AI gold rush is here, but the real story lies deeper in the supply chain. In this debut episode of Inside Taiwan , we trace the invisible engine powering the AI boom: Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem. From TSMC’s CoWoS packaging bottleneck to the soaring demand for silicon IP and the emerging Taiwan-Japan supply-chain alliance, every link in the chain is reshaping how technology and money flow...