Google opens new AI hardware engineering center in Taipei

Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Google on Thursday unveiled its largest artificial intelligence (AI) hardware infrastructure engineering center outside the United States in Taipei.

Aamer Mahmood, Google Cloud's vice president of platforms infrastructure engineering, said at the opening ceremony that "the technology developed and tested in Taipei is deployed in Google data centers around the world, which in turn power Google devices that billions of people rely on every day."

He said Taiwan's engineering talent, supply chain expertise, world-leading manufacturing partners and the "unique advantage" of having a local data center in Changhua County in central Taiwan allow Google to shorten its development cycle and "solve complex problems much faster."

"This is not just an investment in an office, it is an investment in an ecosystem," Mahmood said.

Meanwhile, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said the new office in Taipei's Shilin District shows that Google is "steadily building its confidence and commitment to long-term investment in Taiwan."

Lai said the expansion demonstrates that Taiwan is "not only a vital part of the global technology supply chain, but also a key hub for building secure and trustworthy AI."

Taiwan has been warning against Chinese generative AI systems, such as Deepseek, over national security concerns.

The National Security Bureau on Sunday urged Taiwanese people to be on alert for potential security breaches and the spread of "disinformation" biased towards the Chinese government, following recent inspections of such apps.

The center marks the latest in more than a decade of Google infrastructure investments in Taiwan, including the Changhua data center in 2013 and two hardware R&D offices in New Taipei's Banqiao District in 2021 and 2024.