Synopsis
Intel is a rival and plans to challenge TSMC at the cutting edge, but Gelsinger isn’t the only voice making for uncomfortable listening in Taiwan.
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The sustainability of Taiwan’s industry has also come into question after it suffered power outages this month, focusing attention on environmental factors including water shortages and uncertainty over future electricity supply for power-hungry chip plants.
Back in February, as the world was beating a path to Taiwan’s door for help to tackle a shortage of semiconductors, the health minister got into a scrap with China over Covid-19 vaccines.
Beijing, he suggested, had used political pressure to derail Taiwan’s plan to purchase five million doses directly from Germany’s BioNTech SE, rather than via a Chinese company which held the rights to develop and market the BioNTech-Pfizer Inc. vaccine across China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying retorted that Taipei “should stop hyping up political issues under the pretext of vaccine issues.”