Taipei (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of Economic Development has approved an application from U.S. chip design giant Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) to set up a research and development (R&D) center in Taiwan, an official said Saturday (July 27).
Director-General of the ministry's Department of Industrial Technology Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) said in a Facebook post detailing the announcement that Taiwan will provide NT$3.31 billion (US$100 million) in subsidies for the venture. The total investment in the venture including the government subsidy will be NT$8.64 billion.
“After nearly a year of complex back-and-forth discussions… AMD will establish a silicon photonics, artificial intelligence and heterogeneous integration R&D team in Taiwan,” Chiou said. He said that 33 Taiwanese companies will also be involved in R&D opportunities brought by AMD, particularly in AI software and GPU development.

Chiou also said the investment could create up to 1,000 jobs in three years.
The director-general said he first visited AMD’s headquarters in Silicon Valley in April 2023. He said while there, he convinced the company’s Senior Vice President David Wang (王啟尚) that now was the time to invest in Taiwan.
The executive added that he opened the meeting with Wang by saying that AMD’s competitors have already invested in Taiwan, and that the gap between the company and others may widen. “The result of using this opening seemed to be pretty good,” he said, noting that AMD executives showed interest in opportunities in Taiwan from then on.
On Monday, AMD had a market capitalization of US$226.27 billion and was trading at US$139.99 per share.