Taiwan stock market now bigger than UK's as semiconductor giant TSMC cashes in on the AI boom
The Taiwan stock market has overtaken London’s as the Pacific island’s technology firms cash in on the AI boom.
Yesterday, the value of Taiwan’s listed firms hit £3.05 trillion, eclipsing the £3.02 trillion total value of companies listed in London.
Taiwan’s market – now the world’s seventh-largest – has been turbocharged by the AI frenzy and is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest global producer of the chips used in the technology.
TSMC’s value of £1.3 trillion makes it the eighth-biggest company in the world and it is more than five times as valuable as HSBC or AstraZeneca, the largest companies on the FTSE 100, which are valued at £230billion apiece.
The chip firm, which boasts Nvidia and Apple as clients, yesterday reported a 58 per cent leap in first-quarter profits to a record £13.3billion after sales rose by more than a third to £26.5billion.
‘Business is booming to such a degree that Taiwan’s overall economic numbers look great,’ said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
High demand: Taiwan is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company - the world’s largest producer of the critical microchips used in AI technology
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TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei said: ‘Demand for semiconductors will continue to be very fundamental’.
It comes as the industry, which uses vast amounts of energy, could soon be under pressure from higher electricity costs because of war in the Middle East.
In contrast to Taiwan’s boom, worries over inflation and high interest rates have dampened the mood of investors in British companies.
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