TAIPEI: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang praised and lightly cajoled his major Taiwanese suppliers to produce more to help power strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI), capping a visit to the island of his birth, where he has been mobbed by adoring fans at every step.
Speaking at an impromptu press conference in the rain outside a Taipei restaurant late on Saturday (Jan 31), where he had hosted suppliers for a “trillion-dollar dinner”, named after the market capitalisation of those firms attending, Huang said this would be another good year for business.
“TSMC needs to work very hard this year because I need a lot of wafers,” he said, laughing, referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest producer of advanced chips used in AI applications.
“TSMC is doing an incredible job and they’re working very, very hard. We have a lot of demand this year,” he added after taking pictures with a beaming TSMC CEO CC Wei.
“Over the next 10 years, TSMC will likely increase their capacity by much more than 100 per cent, and so this is a very substantial scale-up in the next decade.”
Wei did not answer questions from reporters.
Last month, TSMC said capital spending could jump as much as 37 per cent this year to US$56 billion, and would increase “significantly” in 2028 and 2029 given AI demand.
Huang, who emigrated to the United States as a child, is met by a throng of adoring fans wherever he returns to Taiwan. Local media, who refer to him as “the people’s dad”, breathlessly report on his every move.