Asia is becoming a central builder of AI infrastructure, from memory chips and server parts to data centres and national investment plans. A new analysis by Geopolitical Intelligence Services (GIS) says AI-related spending worldwide could top $1 trillion in 2026, with Taiwan, Japan and South Korea supplying much of the hardware and expanding their own ambitions.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
GIS argues that Asia’s role goes well beyond assembling components for US-designed systems. The report says server and server-parts exports from Asia rose 50 per cent in 2024 and 110 per cent in 2025, with Taiwan the largest single source. It describes South Korean firms as leading suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, while Taiwanese companies assemble key components.
The report also points to regional investment plans. Taiwan allocated about $1 billion in 2026 to its AI initiatives, including domestic computing capacity and talent. Japan has proposed more than $3 billion for its AI transformation. South Korea allocated more than $7 billion to its 2026 AI action plan and is seeking additional private investment.
Why it matters
The AI race is often narrated as a contest between model makers and chip designers. GIS’s account puts supply chains, manufacturing and regional investment in the frame: the systems being built in the US and China still depend on a wider network of Asian producers, while governments across the region are trying to capture more of the value themselves.
That could mean more competition in chips, data-centre infrastructure and robotics, as well as bigger economic stakes for countries that make the hardware. The figures and forecasts here are GIS’s analysis, not a settled forecast of where investment or growth will land.
Our read
The useful shift is from asking who has the cleverest model to asking who can build and supply the machinery behind it. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are not interchangeable links in a supply chain, and their investment plans suggest they want more than a supporting role. AI’s grand strategy, it turns out, has a rather large factory floor.
What to watch
- Whether the export growth described by GIS continues beyond 2025.
- How Taiwan, Japan and South Korea turn investment plans into operating capacity and commercially successful AI products.
- Whether regional competition in chips, data centres and robotics creates new supply-chain dependencies.
Discussion spark: Should Asian economies prioritise becoming indispensable suppliers to the global AI industry, or spend more to build their own models and services?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (10 November 2026, 07:00 UTC)
- Shield names Matt Ofilos Chief Financial Officer (10 November 2026, 07:00 UTC)
Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.