Taiwan's export machine is breaking records, and its stock market has surged more than 60% since January. But a wave of blockbuster U.S. tech listings — led by SpaceX's $2.1 trillion debut — threatens to pull hundreds of billions of dollars away from existing holdings, including Taiwan's own chipmaking giant TSMC.
Taiwan's Exports Are Having a Historic Run
Taiwan exported $78.48 billion worth of goods in May, the second-highest monthly total ever recorded. That marks 31 straight months of year-on-year export growth — a streak that is on track to surpass the country's all-time record of 34 consecutive months, set back in the late 1980s.
For the first five months of 2026, total exports reached $341.83 billion with a trade surplus of $85.2 billion, both already ahead of any previous first-half figure. The government now expects full-year export growth to hit 39.8% — the biggest annual jump in 50 years — with total export value potentially approaching $900 billion.
The driving force is artificial intelligence. Taiwanese manufacturers hold a commanding position in the global AI supply chain, and demand shows no sign of slowing.
Jensen Huang's Taiwan Visit Reinforces the AI Bet
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Taipei last week for Computex, where he promoted the company's next-generation Vera Rubin AI server and locked in production orders for next year. His message was bullish: global AI infrastructure spending, currently running at $2 to $3 trillion, could eventually exceed 10% of world GDP — roughly $12 trillion — suggesting the industry has room to grow tenfold from here. That Taiwan's suppliers sit at the centre of this buildout was underscored by Nvidia's decision to base its overseas headquarters in Taipei.
Other chipmakers are also placing major bets on Taiwan. Advanced Micro Devices placed a single order worth roughly $10 billion with Taiwanese suppliers, while MediaTek secured part of Broadcom's Google TPU order book.
Taiwan's benchmark stock index has climbed as much as 60.73% from its January low, and the government forecasts GDP growth of 9.64% for the full year — a remarkable figure by any measure.
U.S. Tech Giants Are Raising Cash, and Markets Are Nervous
Even as Taiwan's fundamentals look strong, turbulence in U.S. markets is casting a shadow. Broadcom's stock fell roughly 20% after its earnings missed the most optimistic forecasts. More strikingly, Alphabet — the parent company of Google and YouTube, which typically buys back its own shares rather than borrowing — announced plans to raise $85 billion through bond issuance. Markets were rattled. Meta is reportedly considering a similar move.
The bigger near-term concern, however, is SpaceX. Elon Musk's rocket company went public at $175 per share, raising between $74 billion and $75 billion. Its post-listing market capitalisation hit $2.1 trillion, putting it on par with TSMC's U.S.-listed ADR shares and pushing it into the global top ten by market value, ahead of both Broadcom and Meta. Taiwan's Fubon Life Insurance invested roughly $600 million in the offering, though it did not receive all its shares at the IPO price.
Three Mega-IPOs Could Redirect $150 Billion
SpaceX is just the first of three major listings expected this year. Anthropic and OpenAI are also preparing to go public. Together, the three companies are projected to absorb more than $150 billion from markets while creating a combined market capitalisation approaching $3.5 trillion.
For large institutional investors — pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds — that means selling existing holdings to free up cash for the new listings. High-market-cap stocks, including TSMC's ADR, face the most direct pressure from this reallocation.
Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager made famous by his prescient bet against U.S. mortgage securities before the 2008 financial crisis and portrayed in the film *The Big Short*, has sounded the alarm. He argues the combined valuations of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI already exceed the total scale of the dot-com bubble in 2000, and has disclosed a roughly $1 billion short position against AI-related stocks.
Inflation and Rate Uncertainty Cloud the Outlook
On the macroeconomic front, the picture is mixed. U.S. job growth came in above expectations. May's Consumer Price Index rose 4.2% year-on-year — a three-year high, though in line with forecasts — while core inflation, which strips out food and energy, rose a milder 0.2% month-on-month, slightly below estimates.
The Federal Reserve's new chair has signalled a preference for keeping policy decisions data-driven, with little appetite for forward guidance. Add in volatile oil prices tied to Middle East tensions, and the case for rate cuts this year looks weak. With big tech raising capital from markets rather than returning it, U.S. indices may well stay rangebound through the summer. The next clear signal will come in July, when second-quarter corporate earnings begin to roll in.
*Adapted from Wealth Invest Weekly, Issue 2409. By Fang Ya-shen
