Taiwan, NVIDIA, and the Fragile Future of AI
When Taiwan held its elections at the beginning of January, the world was waiting for the outcome with bated breath. The Chinese leadership had been posturing and even threatening with the usual vigour about potential reactions to unfavourable outcomes.
The pronounced interest of the Western World might be surprising given Taiwan is a relatively small state in Asia with only roughly 24 million inhabitants. The stakes around Taiwan are high and have been high for years, given the rising tensions between China and the U.S. ramping up to a new Cold War dynamic, and the complex history surrounding Taiwan and China. Only in April of 2023, when Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen trasited the U.S., the Chinese took escalatory measures.
But besides the political, Cold War-esque dynamics behind the U.S. aiming to defend its position as the unipolar hegemon of global power it became with the fall of the Soviet Union, there are concrete economic factors at play. These economic factors largely centre around a single company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), that, as the imaginative name tells, manufactures semiconductors in Taiwan.
Chips and their economic importance are well-known around the globe, at the latest after chip shortages in 2021 uncovered a fragile ecosystem of global supply chains based on a select…
