Taiwan AI supply chain powers manufacturing PMI to 18‑month high

This PMI print is a macro datapoint with a clear AI fingerprint. Taiwan’s manufacturing rebound is being driven by next‑generation AI computing products entering mass production—GPUs, advanced substrates, memory and power systems—rather than a broad‑based cyclical upswing. Analysts quoted in the piece frame the market as split between Nvidia’s GPU‑centric stack and a wave of custom ASICs tailored to hyperscaler needs, with Google’s renewed push called out as a second engine alongside OpenAI‑driven demand.([taiwannews.com.tw](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/6275868))

For the AGI race, this reinforces a simple but important constraint: timelines are now as much about supply chains as algorithms. An 80–90% global share in critical AI components gives Taiwan enormous leverage over how fast and cheaply new models can be trained and deployed. It also means that any disruption—geopolitical or natural—could slow the entire field, while sustained capex here will keep pushing the compute frontier outward.

Competitively, the article hints at a more multipolar hardware landscape. If ASIC‑centric camps gain ground against Nvidia’s GPUs, model developers will have to design for a more heterogeneous inference world. That adds complexity but could ultimately make AGI‑class systems more resilient by avoiding single‑vendor dependence.