MediaTek’s push into PCs and servers widens Taiwan’s chip lead over South Korea

MediaTek, long known as a mobile chip designer, is pushing into the PC and data center markets with a series of moves that pair its design capabilities with TSMC's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited ↘ 1.20% manufacturing strength — a combination that industry observers say widens Taiwan's lead over South Korea in the global semiconductor race.

From Mobile to Data Centers

On August 31, Nvidia ↘ 1.47% invested $3.5 billion in MediaTek's record $3.9 billion overseas convertible bond offering, which also attracted participation from Alphabet ↘ 3.58% and institutional investors. Under the expanded partnership, MediaTek will adopt Nvidia's NVLink Fusion interconnect standard, allowing hyperscalers such as Google and Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↘ 2.24% to design custom XPUs that connect directly to Nvidia's rack-scale AI systems.reuters+3

MediaTek expects roughly $2 billion in revenue this year from its data center custom silicon business and aims to capture up to 15% of the AI data center market — estimated at $80 billion — next year. According to a UBS Asia-Pacific AI technology report cited by BigGo Finance, MediaTek has raised its 2027 TPU sales target to $12–16 billion, up from its earlier $7–12 billion range, with UBS projecting as high as $18 billion.finance.biggo+1

PC Chips and the Googlebook

MediaTek also unveiled its Dimensity CX C10 Max on September 21, its first SoC for Google's new "Googlebook" laptop platform. Built on TSMC's 3nm process, the chip integrates an eight-core CPU, an 11-core GPU, and MediaTek's NPU 890 delivering up to 55 TOPS of AI performance. MediaTek said the integrated design "enables thin and light laptops without cooling fans".biz.chosun+3

Separately, Nvidia has named Lenovo ↘ 0.84% and Acer as the first two manufacturers to ship Windows systems based on its new RTX Spark graphics and AI chip in October.ad-hoc-news

South Korea Falls Behind

The contrast with Samsung Electronics has sharpened. According to Counterpoint Research, TSMC held 71% of the pure-play foundry market in the second quarter of 2026, while Samsung's share stood at 8%. Samsung's foundry and System LSI divisions have posted quarterly losses of 1 trillion to 2 trillion won since late last year, and the company has yet to bring commercial PC or server chip products to market beyond its Exynos mobile lineup.finance.biggo+1

"MediaTek's growth was possible not only thanks to its design capabilities but also because Taiwan's semiconductor value chain — from TSMC's foundry to back-end — was already tightly in place," a source familiar with Samsung told the Chosun Biz. "With Nvidia now an ally, it will secure a structurally favorable position in both PCs and servers."biz.chosun