Taiwan’s Foxconn to Partner with Nvidia to Build Enormous AI Data Center

What Happened?

Taiwan’s Foxconn announced this week a partnership with Nvidia to build a large AI data center in Taiwan. Speaking at Taipei’s annual Computrex Trade Show, Foxconn chairman Young Liu said they plan to build a giant AI data center that will require a massive amount of electricity. 

‘This AI data center is targeted to have 100 megawatts of power,’ Mr. Liu said to the tradeshow audience. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also spoke at the tradeshow, adding ‘We’re going to build an AI factory for Foxconn to use, and for Taiwan the entire ecosystem to use.’

Why it Matters

Mr. Huang added in a later statement, ‘AI has ignited a new industrial revolution — science and industry will be transformed.’

For Taiwan, such an enormous power requirement will pose challenges since electricity is a critical resource there. The plan calls for a gradual approach to bringing the data center online, starting with twenty megawatts, then forty, and slowly working up to the maximum of one hundred. 

Neither company mentioned how much the new AI data center was projected to cost, but the size and scale alone suggest the final amount could be over one billion dollars. The joint venture will bring together Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, and Nvidia, a global powerhouse in the chip making industry. 

The move continues the trend of large tech companies making substantial investments to build new infrastructure to support and expand the use of AI across a range of different industries. As AI programs take on larger, more complex and more numerous tasks, they will need the ability to process more data to support those activities. Which in turn is fueling plans for new data centers like the one in Taiwan.

According to a press release by Nvidia, it and Foxconn Hon Hai Technology Group today are deepening their longstanding partnership and are working with the Taiwan government to build an AI factory supercomputer. One that will deliver state-of-the-art NVIDIA Blackwell infrastructure to researchers, startups and industries.

Nvidia’s statement also said that Foxconn will provide the AI infrastructure through its subsidiary Big Innovation Company as a Nvidia Cloud Partner. Featuring 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, the AI factory will significantly expand AI computing availability and fuel innovation for Taiwan researchers and enterprises.

How it Affects You

The speed and scale of AI growth has accelerated in the last several years, and thanks to large investments like the Taiwan data center, that trend is likely to continue for the rest of the 2020s. With the rise of e-commerce, an increasing number of activities can be done online, which opens up new opportunities for AI programs to be used.