林保華

Taiwan’s successful tech industry

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2024.6.10

Computex Taipei 2024, organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), started on Tuesday last week.

The event had 4,500 booths and attracted 1,500 companies, more than 13,000 international professionals and nine technology giants — including Intel Corp, Qualcomm Inc, Ammann Group Holding and other major companies. Among the companies, there is competition and more cooperation. The event also attracted more than 1,000 news reporters from around the world.

AMD chairwoman and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰), dubbed the “Queen of Semiconductors,” began the show with a keynote speech on “High Performance Computing in the AI [artificial intelligence] Era,” showing that this year’s focus was on AI technology.

Meanwhile, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), called the “Godfather of AI,” visited Taiwan for the fifth time within a year.

He came a week in advance to host banquets and meet with Nvidia’s Taiwanese partners, and to give a speech at National Taiwan University on the eve of Computex. His friendly and humble demeanor has once again caused a “Jensen Huang fever,” and his praise of Taiwan was a testament to his sense of home.

Supermicro founder and CEO Charles Liang (梁見後), whose company stock price surged nearly tenfold within a year, also returned to his alma mater, the Taipei National University of Technology, to give a speech.

They were great inspirations for Taiwan.

Huang spoke highly of Taiwan’s information and communications technology industry to the media, listing 43 Taiwanese companies he has worked with in the AI field.

Such a fairly complete AI supply chain led to a rise in their stock prices the following day.

Huang even went as far as to say that “Taiwan is one of the most important countries” and a pillar of the world.

Although he was referring to the Taiwanese tech industry, is it not also true that Taiwan, which has been a global focal point due to the Chinese military threat, has an important strategic role geopolitically?

China’s political fanatics known as “xiaofenhong” (小粉紅), literally “Little Pinks,” were stomping their feet with rage after hearing this.

However, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpieces were silent, because Computex began on June 4, and the term “June 4” is banned in China.

Given Taiwanese laws, it is also difficult for China to send companies to the show, with the exception of Lenovo Group Ltd, which opened a branch in Taiwan two decades ago.

However, Beijing would surely have sent spies to gather tech information.

What is certain is that China could hardly prevent such a large number of international professionals from coming to Taiwan to take part in the show, and it could not sell the “one China” principle at the event, or bully Taiwan by threatening to crush it into pieces just for claiming its own sovereignty.

While the new industrial revolution is in full swing, China is still indulging in its millennia-old culture and how it has been “since ancient times,” which is sad for national rejuvenation.

Taiwan’s economic prosperity contrasts sharply with China’s economic downturn.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked enterprises at a forum: “What’s the reason for the decline in the number of new ‘unicorn enterprises’ [a start-up valued at US$1 billion or more] in our country?”

However, Xi himself might be the murderer of unicorns.

Paul Lin is a political commentator.

Translated by Eddy Chang