{"id":506048,"date":"2026-05-28T00:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/506048\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T00:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:33:34","slug":"taiwans-economy-is-booming-thanks-to-ai-not-everyone-sees-the-benefits-business-and-economy-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/506048\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan\u2019s economy is booming thanks to AI. Not everyone sees the benefits | Business and Economy News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taipei, Taiwan<\/strong> \u2013 <\/strong>For Li, an engineer at Taiwanese computer giant ASUS, the AI boom sweeping Taiwan has made it an exciting time to work in tech.<\/p>\n

Taiwan is a semiconductor powerhouse, producing about 90 percent of the most advanced chips used to power leading AI models such as ChatGPT and Claude.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve felt Taiwan\u2019s tech and computer industry becoming more vibrant,\u201d Li, who asked not to be identified by his real name, told Al Jazeera, pointing to events such as the upcoming Computex tech and AI expo running from June 2 to 6.<\/p>\n

Still, Li worries that the spoils of Taiwan\u2019s AI windfall are not being shared equally.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost industries unrelated to tech don\u2019t seem to be feeling the benefits, so it doesn\u2019t feel evenly distributed at the moment,\u201d Li said, explaining that many of his former classmates working outside of tech do not appear to be doing as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s mainly the industries at the front of this tech wave that are benefitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s economy is growing at a pace that would be the envy of any country.<\/p>\n

Gross domestic product (GDP) rose 8.63 percent in 2025, followed by a heady 13.69 percent expansion in the first three months of this year.<\/p>\n

\"StudentsStudents dressed in white protective suits and face masks visit a clean room as part of a summer camp organised by US chip designer Synopsys with the goal of attracting more youth to Taiwan\u2019s semiconductor industry, in Hsinchu, on July 18, 2025 [Ann Wang\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Exports surged 34.9 percent last year to $640.7bn, with more than two-thirds of the total being tech-related goods and services.<\/p>\n

Semiconductors alone account for more than 20 percent of Taiwan\u2019s GDP, according to US trade data, with the vast majority of production handled by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC),\u00a0whose top customers include Nvidia and Apple.<\/p>\n

TSMC by itself accounts for more than 40 percent of the value of the island\u2019s stock market.<\/p>\n

While impressive, the rapid economic expansion has raised concerns about being overreliant on the growth of AI.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s Central Bank Governor Yang Chin-lung has sounded the alarm about an emerging \u201cK-shaped economy,\u201d where certain sectors grow rapidly while others fall into stagnation.<\/p>\n

While critical to Taiwan\u2019s economy, the semiconductor industry is far from the largest source of jobs.<\/p>\n

The sector employs only about 300,000 people in a workforce of 11 million, according to data compiled by Dachrahn Wu, director of National Central University\u2019s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development.<\/p>\n

The broader electronics and IT manufacturing industry employs about one million people, compared with about seven million working in the service sector, according to Wu\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

The heavy reliance on a single industry for growth marks a shift from the Asian Tiger era of the 1960s to 90s, when Taiwan\u2019s economy was driven by hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to James Lin, a historian who specialises in Taiwan\u2019s post-war economic transformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the 1970s to 1990s, economic growth was concentrated in the hands of small and medium family enterprises that exemplified the \u2018living room factory\u2019 model, where family-owned businesses focused on producing one part for a consumer product,\u201d Lin told Al Jazeera. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefits of this period were thus more widely distributed across Taiwanese society,\u201d Lin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy contrast, today, wealth inequality is growing in Taiwan as land is becoming more expensive and large corporations like TSMC attract the lion\u2019s share of foreign capital investment rather than small corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, said Taiwan\u2019s economic model has left it at risk of becoming a \u201cdual society\u201d where tech sweeps up talent, funding and resources at the expense of other industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard if you\u2019re not in [the semiconductor] sector in Taiwan right now,\u201d Garcia Herrero told Al Jazeera, pointing to low wages for workers in non-tech roles and rising costs for businesses.<\/p>\n

Some of Taiwan\u2019s challenges are out of its control, said Chao-Hsi Huang, associate dean at the Taipei School of Economics and a former director at Taiwan\u2019s central bank.<\/p>\n

Those challenges include US President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs, which have partially exempted semiconductors but hit exporters in non-tech industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe traditional [manufacturing] sector suffers higher tariffs than other competing countries like Korea or Japan, or even Southeast Asian countries, due to the fact we are not able to sign free trade agreements,\u201d Huang told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are treated differently, and that\u2019s a difficulty we are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have placed other issues on the shoulders of the government, including a weak currency that has made exports more competitive but chipped away at consumers\u2019 purchasing power.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s government denies engaging in currency manipulation, though it acknowledges intervening in the market to smooth out \u201cvolatility\u201d when the new Taiwan dollar falls or rises sharply against other currencies.<\/p>\n

After two decades of stagnation through the 2010s, wages are growing again \u2013 albeit unevenly.<\/p>\n

Real average wages grew 1.4 percent in 2025, while median wages rose 1.35 percent, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).<\/p>\n

Still, 70 percent of Taiwanese earned less than the average, a statistic attributable to the distorting effect of much higher salaries in the tech sector, where pay is nearly double the national average.<\/p>\n

\"AA miniature-sized wafer sorter machine model by Rorze on display at the Science Park Exploration Museum in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on February 6, 2023 [Ann Wang\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

For Taiwanese frustrated with stagnant pay, Taiwan\u2019s soaring stock market has offered some consolation.<\/p>\n

Riding the AI boom, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) more than doubled in value between 2019 and 2025 to $2.2 trillion, according to HSBC.<\/p>\n

Regulatory changes introduced in 2020 made it easier for small-time investors to buy single stocks, encouraging a rush of everyday Taiwanese into the market.<\/p>\n

In January, the TWSE reported that the number of trading accounts had reached 13.77 million \u2013 equivalent to 60 percent of Taiwan\u2019s population \u2013 while hailing the bourse as a \u201ccornerstone for inclusive prosperity and shared growth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though more equal than neighbours such as Singapore, Hong Kong and China, Taiwan\u2019s wealth divide has grown over the decades.<\/p>\n

In 1980, Taiwan had a Gini coefficient of 0.308 \u2013 a measurement of wealth distribution where 0 indicates perfect equality \u2013 putting it on par with contemporary Norway, according to the DGBAS.<\/p>\n

By 2024, Taiwan\u2019s Gini coefficient had grown to 0.341 \u2013 lower than many countries but still a significant rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that the benefits of economic growth haven\u2019t been distributed evenly,\u201d Ryan, an engineer in the local tech sector who asked not to be identified by his real name, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome industries or asset holders benefit significantly, but ordinary office workers often experience a rise in prices and housing costs, rather than an easier life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wei-ting Yen, an assistant research fellow at the research institution Academia Sinica, said while the semiconductor and stock market booms have helped some Taiwanese, they have heightened the angst of others.<\/p>\n

In a survey of 1,195 Taiwanese voters carried out last month, 40 percent said their household was financially either \u201canxious\u201d or \u201cvery anxious\u201d due to rising living costs, particularly housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think subjectively, they\u2019re anxious that they\u2019re not accumulating wealth and it\u2019s not enough to help them buy a house or an apartment,\u201d Yen told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing prices have been going crazy worldwide, and the stock market has been going crazy, [but] for people who do not have extra money to invest in those two options, it creates even more frustration and anxiety around them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taipei, Taiwan \u2013 For Li, an engineer at Taiwanese computer giant ASUS, the AI boom sweeping Taiwan has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[10852,79,3426,179,18,19,29304,17,5,380,82],"class_list":["post-506048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-inequality","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-taiwan","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116649395246450236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}