Google opens new AI engineering centre in Taiwan

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Alphabet's Google on Thursday opened in Taiwan its biggest artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure hardware engineering centre outside of the U.S., in what Taiwan's president said was a show of confidence in the island as a trustworthy technology partner. Taiwan is home to the world's largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, whose chips are widely used by the companies like Nvidia that are driving the global AI boom. "The technology developed and tested in Taipei is deployed in Google data centres around the world, which in turn power Google devices that billions of people rely on everyday," said Aamer Mahmood, Google Cloud's vice president of platforms infrastructure engineering. "This is not just an investment in an office, it's an investment in an ecosystem, a testament to Taiwan's place as an important centre for global AI innovation." Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told the opening ceremony that Google was showing its commitment to long-term investment in Taiwan. "This also allows the world to see that Taiwan is not only a vital part of the global technological supply chain, but also a key hub for building secure and trustworthy AI," he said. Taiwan's government has repeatedly warned of the risks involved in using Chinese-developed AI systems like DeepSeek. China's government has dismissed such concerns. China views Taiwan as its own territory, despite the objections of the government in Taipei. The new Google engineering centre also reflects the deep partnership between the United States and Taiwan, said Raymond Greene, the de facto U.S. ambassador in Taipei. "Building on this foundation of innovation, we are entering a new era of opportunity, a new golden age in U.S.-Taiwan economic relations," he said. (Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Kevin Buckland)

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