Lisa Su, AMD CEO, Visits Taiwan After 4 Years
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD and one of the Taiwanese-American executives representing the U.S. semiconductor industry, visited Taiwan on the 18th for the first time in four years.
During her five-day schedule, she will attend events including the Innovation Day hosted by AMD and its supply chain partners in Taiwan, and meet with TSMC, iPhone manufacturer Pegatron, MacBook manufacturer Quanta Computer, and others.
On the 20th, multiple Taiwanese media outlets such as China Times, Sun TV, and Jinzhoukan reported that after the 'Innovation Day' event held by AMD and its supply chain partners in Taiwan on the 19th, CEO Lisa Su was asked by reporters about the Korean media reports suggesting that AMD might transfer the production volume of next-generation products, including the 3nm (1nm = one billionth of a meter) foundry process, to Samsung Electronics' foundry.
In response to this question, CEO Lisa Su retorted, "Do you believe the Korean media?" and emphasized the strong alliance with TSMC. She added, "TSMC played a decisive role in AMD's transformation into a leader in high-performance computing from a mere 1% market share in 2017."
Lisa Su emphasizes "TSMC as an important partner" and alliance
As the concentration of major fabless companies such as Apple, Nvidia, and AMD on TSMC intensifies, rumors have circulated in the semiconductor industry that AMD might entrust Samsung Electronics with the production of next-generation products due to TSMC's production capacity reaching its limits.
In response, CEO Lisa Su said, "We generally do not publicly disclose details about specific products and orders," but added, "However, TSMC is an important partner."
She continued, "The Instinct MI300, the world’s top-level accelerator for generative artificial intelligence (AI) that AMD plans to launch at the end of the year, is highly complex," and emphasized TSMC's importance by stating, "Without a partner as strong as TSMC, we could not release this product, so we will continue to cooperate with our Taiwanese partners."
Additionally, CEO Lisa Su evaluated the AI market development as "still in its early stages" and predicted "rapid growth over the next 5 to 10 years." She estimated that "the business opportunity in the AI market over the next 3 to 5 years will reach $150 billion (approximately 190 trillion KRW)."
Industry insiders view CEO Su’s visit to Taiwan as significant in terms of AMD strengthening its supply chain related to AI semiconductors. Taiwan’s importance is increasingly highlighted within the U.S.-led semiconductor supply chain. Based on full government support, Taiwan has solidly built a semiconductor ecosystem covering all areas from design to foundry and back-end processing.
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