During the event in Taipei last week, Taiwan’s defence ministry reported 79 Chinese warplanes operating near the island.
On the final day, Taiwan’s coast guard faced off against Chinese counterparts in the contested South China Sea near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, broadcasting a warning that peace in the Taiwan Strait was vital to the stability of the global economy and the lifeline of the technology industry.
The military activity formed a backdrop to some of the most significant investment commitments the island has received. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said the company plans to spend approximately $150 billion annually in Taiwan, up from roughly $10 to $15 billion five years ago.
Huang also said Nvidia’s new Vera Rubin chip design has twice as many supply chain partners as its previous Blackwell architecture, with 150 companies in Taiwan alone involved in its production. AMD chief executive Lisa Su was also present, alongside representatives of SK Group and Intel, each reinforcing Taiwan’s centrality to the AI hardware stack.
The concentration of that stack is the source of both the island’s strategic importance and its vulnerability. Taiwan is home to TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and the primary supplier to Nvidia and Apple, as well as Foxconn, Nvidia’s largest server manufacturer, alongside dozens of companies working across the components and systems that power AI data centre infrastructure globally.
The geopolitical tension was also visible in who was absent. Taiwan stalled entry permits for all 219 listed mainland Chinese exhibitors at Computex, with not a single application approved. The permit freeze extended a pattern first documented at an earlier Taiwanese trade show in April, with no formal rejections issued.
Mainland travel to Taiwan has been declining alongside tightening cross-strait relations, with more than 420 Chinese military aircraft documented operating near the island in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
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