Asus Cloud, a unit of Taiwan-based electronics firm Asus, is developing a supercomputer in partnership with Taiwan AI Cloud and the National Centre for High-Performance Computing.

The system, located in Tainan, will use Nvidia chips and is set to launch its initial phase with 80 petaflops of capacity in December 2025, according to Peter Wu, CEO of Asus Cloud and Taiwan AI Cloud.

The project’s final capacity is expected to reach 250 petaflops.

For comparison, the world’s current top-ranked supercomputer, Hewlett Packard Enterprises’ El Capitan, has 1,700 petaflops.

Wu said the new supercomputer could raise Taiwan’s total computing capacity by at least 50%.

The project is part of broader plans by Taiwan’s government to expand the island’s overall computing capacity to about 1,200 petaflops by 2029, up from 160 petaflops currently.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Taiwan’s supercomputing transformation reverses decade of strategic neglect

Taiwan’s massive supercomputing investment represents a dramatic turnaround from years of underinvestment in this critical infrastructure.

As recently as 2015, Taiwan had no supercomputers in the global TOP500 ranking despite being a semiconductor powerhouse that produces 90% of the world’s laptops12. The country’s most advanced system, ALPS, had fallen from 42nd place globally in 2011 to 445th by 2015 due to budget constraints and lack of upgrades1.

This neglect forced Taiwanese researchers to build their own computing clusters because national facilities couldn’t meet their needs1.

The contrast with today’s ambitions is striking. Taiwan now plans to increase its computing power sevenfold from 160 petaflops to 1,200 petaflops by 2029, aiming to rank among the top three computing powers in Asia3.

The government has committed NT$190 billion to AI infrastructure development, signaling that supercomputing is now considered critical national infrastructure rather than an academic luxury4.

2️⃣ Sovereign AI drives Taiwan’s computing infrastructure as geopolitical imperative

Taiwan’s supercomputing push reflects broader concerns about “Sovereign AI,” the need for nations to control their own AI technologies and infrastructure rather than depending on foreign cloud services.