'Taiwan, a Semiconductor Powerhouse, Surpasses South Korea's Market Cap by 491 Trillion Won... Largest Gap in 21 Years'

Amid the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, Taiwan's stock market, known as a 'semiconductor powerhouse,' has surged, widening the market capitalization gap with the South Korean stock market to its largest level in 21 years.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

On the 8th (local time), Bloomberg reported, "The market capitalization gap between Taiwan's stock market and South Korea's has widened to its largest level since 2003."

Taiwan's market capitalization stands at $2.246 trillion, which is $363 billion (approximately 491 trillion won) more than South Korea's market capitalization of $1.883 trillion. This is due to the world's largest foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing) company, TSMC, riding the AI wave, with its stock price soaring 32% this year.

TSMC has emerged as Asia's biggest AI beneficiary, producing advanced chips such as GPUs (graphics processing units) for Nvidia, the leading AI semiconductor company. Bloomberg reported that Taiwan's stock market has risen about 14% this year, with two-thirds of that increase attributed to TSMC's rally.

Bloomberg explained, "Taiwan has a complete AI supply chain ecosystem, not only in foundries but also in chip design and downstream server manufacturers."

In South Korea's case, while it is home to major memory chip manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, Bloomberg analyzed that its exposure to AI is lower compared to Taiwan.