AMD reportedly plans to follow NVIDIA with a logistics hub in Taiwan.
NVIDIA said just over a month ago that it intended to relocate its logistics center from Hong Kong to Taiwan, and it now appears that AMD is preparing to do the same. According to Taiwan’s United Daily News (UDN), AMD will establish its logistics center in the Farglory free trade zone region in Taoyuan’s Dayuan district, which is close to the country’s main international airport. The free trade zone is already home to businesses like ASML and Asus, and Farglory is presently finishing up its expansion, which should be completed in the first few months of 2023. As a result, both NVIDIA and AMD should have enough room to put up their logistics facilities there.
The decision for AMD doesn’t seem to make as much sense as the one made by NVIDIA because its primary graphics card partners, Sapphire and XFX (Pine Group), are situated in Hong Kong. However, only PowerColor is an exclusive AMD partner; AMD still has PowerColor, ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI in Taiwan. Of course, this ignores motherboards and servers, where Taiwanese partners are crucial. However, just like NVIDIA, AMD manufactures its GPUs at TSMC, so it would make more sense to have items that aren’t going to the PRC travel directly to a logistics facility in Taiwan rather than having to ship them out to Hong Kong and then back to Taiwan. According to UDN, shipping straight from Taiwan to the PRC is also reportedly less expensive for AMD than shipping via Hong Kong. Of course, the current trade conflict between the US and the PRC is another factor, and it may eventually cause problems for both AMD and NVIDIA. According to UDN, Hong Kong has gradually lost its significance as a major hub in the electronics industry as Taiwan and Singapore have taken over.
