Goldman Sachs: AI Investment Craze Spills over to Asia, with China, Taiwan, and South Korea Emerging as Biggest Winners in the Region.

Goldman Sachs released a research report stating that investment in AI model training and operation is rapidly increasing. It is expected that the capital expenditure on data centers and computing power by the top five largest cloud service providers in the United States will reach $750 billion by 2026, an 80% increase compared to the previous year. Global related investments are likely to reach twice that amount. Of the capital expenditure in data centers, approximately 60% to 70% is for AI servers, storage, and network equipment, most of which are manufactured in Asia, bringing significant spillover effects to multiple economies in the region. The report points out that the AI boom is significantly driving the economic growth of Asian tech-exporting countries. Taiwan, China dominates in global high-end logic chip production and AI server manufacturing, with tech exports expected to contribute 4.5 percentage points to its substantial GDP growth in 2026. South Korea, as a major supplier of advanced memory chips, will also receive a boost of 1 percentage point in growth. Despite the challenges posed by high energy prices, the strong performance of tech exports will offset the negative impacts and improve the current account performance of these countries. The report also mentioned that although China has a large-scale electronics manufacturing industry, its integration into the global AI supply chain is relatively low due to US export controls and its policy of self-sufficiency in AI. Currently, China is still outside the supply chain in the leading semiconductor chip field, and its tech exports driven by AI investments are growing relatively modestly. However, China still supplies a large number of low-grade components and materials, and is increasing investment in its domestic AI ecosystem.