You’ve probably seen the photos of a guy in a black leather jacket eating fried ice cream at a Taipei night market while being mobbed like he’s a member of BTS. That isn't a K-pop idol. It’s Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. In Taiwan, they call it "Jensanity."
Honestly, it’s a bit surreal.
Most Western investors look at Nvidia and see data centers or stock tickers. But to understand the soul of the company—and why the entire AI revolution is currently anchored to a single island—you have to look at the relationship between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Taiwan. This isn't just a business connection. It is a deep-rooted, decades-long alliance that basically saved Nvidia from bankruptcy back in the 90s.
The Tainan Kid and the "Trillion Dollar Dinner"
Jensen wasn't always the billionaire face of the AI era. He was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1963. He moved to Thailand at five, then was sent to a boarding school in Kentucky at nine that turned out to be a reform academy for troubled youth. He spent his after-school hours cleaning toilets while his brother worked on a tobacco farm.
Life was tough. But it made him tougher.
When he eventually founded Nvidia in a Denny’s in 1993, he didn't have a factory to build his chips. He had a design, but no "fab." So he did something bold. He wrote a letter to Morris Chang, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
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Chang called him back.
That one phone call sparked a 30-year partnership. As Jensen famously put it during a 2024 gathering in San Jose, "Taiwan saved Nvidia." Without the manufacturing prowess of TSMC, the graphics processing unit (GPU) as we know it might never have reached the scale required to power things like ChatGPT or the latest Rubin architecture chips.
Fast forward to 2024 and 2025, and Jensen is back in Taipei hosting what the local media calls "trillion-dollar dinners." He sits at round tables with the heads of Foxconn, Quanta, and Asus, eating traditional Taiwanese soul food and mapping out the future of "AI factories."
Why Taiwan is Irreplaceable (For Now)
A lot of people think the U.S. or Europe can just "onshore" chipmaking and solve the supply chain problem. Jensen thinks that’s mostly wishful thinking—or at least, it’s decades away.
In a 2026 interview with The Times, he clarified that building fabs in the U.S. is more like "insurance" than a replacement for Taiwan. The reason? The ecosystem.
Taiwan isn't just a place with factories. It’s a dense network where the person who etches the transistor, the person who packages the chip using CoWoS (Chip on Wafer on Substrate) technology, and the person who screws the server rack together all live within an hour of each other.
- Speed: When Nvidia needs to pivot from Hopper to Blackwell or the new Rubin platform, the feedback loop in Taiwan is instant.
- Infrastructure: Companies like Foxconn are already building Taiwan’s first massive "AI factory" in partnership with Nvidia.
- Talent: The island has 350 Nvidia partners. These aren't just vendors; they are co-engineers.
If you took Nvidia out of Taiwan tomorrow, the AI revolution would hit a wall. Hard.
Navigating the Geopolitical Tightrope
It’s not all night markets and high-fives, though.
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The elephant in the room is China. The U.S. government has been tightening the screws on what Nvidia can sell to Chinese firms, particularly blocking the top-tier Blackwell and Rubin series. Jensen is caught in the middle.
He’s been incredibly transparent about this. He recently noted that while Nvidia is "nanoseconds" ahead of China in AI, the export restrictions are essentially forcing China to innovate on its own. It’s a delicate dance. He has to stay loyal to U.S. national security interests while keeping the supply lines open through the Taiwan Strait.
Interestingly, at the start of 2026, demand for Nvidia’s slightly "nerfed" China-specific chips like the H20 and H200 is so high that TSMC is struggling to keep up. Reports suggest Nvidia needs a "supply chain miracle" just to meet the current backlog of 2 million units for the Chinese market alone.
What’s Next: Beyond the Screen
At Computex 2025 in Taipei, Jensen shifted the narrative. He isn't just talking about chatbots anymore. He’s talking about Physical AI.
He wants to turn Taiwan into the world’s laboratory for humanoid robots. With the debut of Isaac GR00T N1.5, Nvidia is providing the "AI brain" for robots that can learn to move and reason. He’s betting that Taiwan’s manufacturing DNA—the same DNA that built your iPhone and your laptop—will now build the robots that work in your factories.
He’s even building a new overseas headquarters in Taipei called "Nvidia Constellation." It’s a signal to the world: Nvidia is doubling down on its roots.
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Actionable Insights for 2026
If you’re watching this space, here is what you actually need to keep an eye on:
- Monitor CoWoS Capacity: The bottleneck isn't just making the chips; it's the advanced packaging. If TSMC can't scale this in Taiwan, Nvidia's growth hits a ceiling regardless of demand.
- Watch the "AI Factory" Buildouts: Keep an eye on the Kaohsiung supercomputer project. It’s the blueprint for how countries will build sovereign AI infrastructure.
- Follow the Energy Debate: Jensen has been vocal that "without energy, there's no industrial growth." Taiwan’s ability to provide stable power (including nuclear) will be the make-or-break factor for Nvidia’s local expansion.
- Look Past the "Bubble" Talk: While some analysts scream about an AI bubble, Huang argues we are seeing a structural shift from general-purpose to accelerated computing. Watch the "purchase order" data, not just the hype.
The story of Jensen Huang and Taiwan is a reminder that even the most "virtual" technology relies on a very real, very physical foundation. For the foreseeable future, that foundation is a small, rainy island in the Pacific.