Google to grow office space in Taiwan by 60%

Google is expanding its Taiwan office space by 60 percent as local partners take on a growing role in developing the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, a senior executive said yesterday. The US technology giant expects its operations in Taiwan to continue growing, said Amin Vahdat, Google’s senior vice president, and chief technologist for AI and infrastructure, without providing an investment figure, hiring target or timetable for the expansion. Speaking at a media session after delivering an opening keynote speech at the Semicon Taiwan trade show in Taipei, Vahdat described Taiwan as a critical engineering hub connecting an ecosystem that extends beyond silicon to advanced packaging, liquid cooling and high-power systems. Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP Much of Google’s hardware design and manufacturing takes place in Taiwan in collaboration with local companies, while its engineers work “shoulder to shoulder” with Taiwanese partners, he said. When the first chips designed by Google are produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電), the company’s Taiwan team helps bring them up, test them and validate their performance and functionality before they are handed to software developers, Vahdat said. “You can’t imagine how much anticipation there is for those first few chips that come off the assembly line,” he said. “All that actually starts in Taiwan.” Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP Taiwan’s role in Google’s hardware operations extends beyond procurement and manufacturing, with Taiwanese companies already participating in the codesign of its AI systems, he said. Google is in discussions with multiple Taiwanese partners on future generations of hardware, including rack-level architecture, design for manufacturing and system reliability, he said. “We couldn’t be building the infrastructure, the compute platform that we do today, without this deep codesign,” Vahdat said, adding that the cooperation was accelerating “month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year.” Google opened a data center in Changhua County in 2013 and has invested in several undersea cable projects connecting Taiwan to the world, he said. Taiwan is also home to Google’s largest hardware engineering hub outside the US, Vahdat said. The expansion comes as demand for computing power grows by “perhaps 10 times year over year,” driven by increasingly capable AI models and services, he said. Asked which constraint would be most severe over the next 18 months, Vahdat said bottlenecks could shift rapidly among power availability, chip supply, memory, cooling, rack delivery and networking. “You can’t afford to take your eye off any of the constraints,” he said, adding that energy represents a significant constraint for Google and Taiwan. Google remains committed to achieving round-the-clock, carbon-free energy and would continue investing in renewable energy, batteries and geothermal power, Vahdat said. For Taiwan to protect its position in the global technology industry, it should pursue greater manufacturing automation and power efficiency while improving cooperation throughout the supply chain, he said. Speaking at the opening of the trade show, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that rapid AI development has created a global wave of technological innovation and cooperation, with Taiwan playing an important role alongside other countries. Taiwan’s semiconductor production value reached US$209.1 billion last year, up 22.7 percent from a year earlier, while TSMC and other major global companies continue to invest in advanced manufacturing, packaging and memory production in Taiwan, Cho said. The government will prepare the necessary land, energy, talent and financial support to keep pace with the industry’s expansion, including by preparing factory space so companies can move in quickly, he said. Semicon Taiwan runs through Friday at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, featuring more than 1,300 exhibitors and 4,300 booths from more than 60 countries and areas. China deployed a record number of coast guard, scientific research and other ships near Taiwan’s waters last month, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said, as Beijing dials up pressure on Taipei. The coast guard warned of an increasingly severe situation, as analysts say the increased activity is part of China’s bid to map the region for submarine warfare. The number of Chinese ships detected around Taiwan proper soared to a record 244 last month — an average of nearly eight every day, official data showed. That compares with 55 ships detected in June and 30 in May, and 58 in July last year. In The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday launched an investigation following allegations by a former foreign correspondent in Taiwan of widespread vote-buying in Hualien County. In an interview with Formosa TV (FTV, 民視) aired on Saturday, former Financial Times Taiwan correspondent Kathrin Hille spoke about Taiwan’s democracy and said that she now lives in rural Hualien, where “all the votes are bought.” Neighbors would talk about who had come by and leave cash on the table showing “how much each vote was worth that year,” Hille said. The practice needs to be addressed, considering Taiwan has been a democracy for many Taiwan is bracing for heavy rain in the south and rough seas around outlying Lienchiang County (Matsu), as Typhoon Saudel passes north toward eastern China, with forecasters yesterday warning of localized flooding over the next two days. Saudel is expected to pass closest to Taiwan today, when its outer rain bands are forecast to brush past Matsu, before making landfall at about noon in China’s Zhejiang Province and weakening significantly, the Central Weather Administration said. The storm’s outer bands, combined with strengthening southwesterly winds, are expected to bring heavy rain to southern and southeastern Taiwan today, it said. As the storm approaches Matsu, LIMITED: The bill’s NT$40bn annual spending cap would prevent Taiwan from effectively building up its drone combat capabilities, National Defense Minister Wellington Koo said The legislature yesterday rejected the Executive Yuan’s NT$210 billion (US$6.62 billion) special budget proposal to buy military drones and instead passed its own plan, which earmarks NT$40 billion per year over six consecutive years. The Executive Yuan said its plan to buy about 210,000 drones by 2031 could not wait, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran showed the importance of uncrewed systems in modern warfare amid a rising threat from China. However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their opposition majority to pass a bill providing NT$240 billion through annual budgets over six years, with annual