MediaTek held a media briefing earlier, where General Manager and Chief Operating Officer Chen Kuan-chou and Co-Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer Ku Ta-wei shared the company's recent operational outlook. Facing the global AI wave, MediaTek is no longer content to focus solely on mobile phone chips, but is actively extending its reach into cloud computing and ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) technologies.
During the meeting, Gu Dawei revealed that MediaTek has a very clear revenue target for its ASIC and data center businesses, and expects to have the opportunity to challenge the scale of US$10 billion (approximately NT$314 billion) this year, showing that this "non-mobile phone" business has become the second engine driving MediaTek's growth.
ASICs represent a new blue ocean market, with their technological moat lying in "connectivity" and "memory."
When asked why he is optimistic about the ASIC market, Chen Guanzhou stated frankly that the current bottleneck in computing is not simply computing power, but more importantly, data transmission technology. "You may have great computing power, but it's useless if the data can't be sent to the computing unit," Chen Guanzhou explained. This is precisely when MediaTek's SerDes (serial deserializer) technology, which it has invested in for more than 10 years, comes into play.
Chen Guan-zhou pointed out that MediaTek currently holds a leading position in 112G and 224G SerDes technology, as well as in silicon photonics optical communication technology. Future data centers will not only require computing power, but also customized integration capabilities for high-bandwidth memory (HBM). He emphasized that MediaTek can assist cloud service providers (CSPs) in integrating computing units, high-bandwidth memory, and advanced packaging (such as CoWoS), which is precisely the capability that major companies like Google and Meta value most when seeking customized chips.
Advanced process technology will be present: 2nm process products will be launched in the second half of this year.
Regarding the progress of advanced manufacturing processes, which has attracted much attention, Chen Guanzhou confirmed that MediaTek and TSMC have a very close partnership, and 2nm process products are expected to be officially launched in the second half of this year. Gu Dawei also pointed out that MediaTek is "absolutely not hesitant" to invest in advanced processes, because both flagship mobile phone chips and high-performance computing (HPC) chips for data centers require the most advanced processes to support energy efficiency.
Regarding increasing production capacity, Chen Guanzhou stated that in addition to continuing in-depth cooperation with TSMC, he does not rule out cooperating with other process technology providers. He also emphasized that expanding cooperation not only in advanced processes, but also in related technologies such as advanced packaging are also investment projects.
However, MediaTek stated that it cannot disclose detailed information regarding its 2nm process products at this time, and emphasized that it will continue to double its investment in advanced processes, packaging technologies, and related talent, and will do its best to ensure smooth supply of its products in the event of a capacity shortage.
Deepening cooperation with NVIDIA, with possibilities stretching from automotive to cloud applications.
Regarding the collaboration with NVIDIA, Gu Dawei stated that the relationship between the two parties is excellent. This includes the DGX Spark desktop supercomputer using the GB10 super chip, NVIDIA-licensed NVLink technology, and the Dimensity Auto intelligent cockpit platform, which combines MediaTek's communication technology with NVIDIA's GPU acceleration computing technology to create more room for development.
On the other hand, there are also rumors in the market that MediaTek and NVIDIA plan to develop chip products for AI PCs, but no specific details can be disclosed at present.
However, given MediaTek's continued focus on ASIC design to drive market development opportunities, compared to NVIDIA's emphasis on GPU-accelerated computing, and the recent market expectation that ASIC will continue to develop well, which NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang considers "illogical," although the two companies have a certain cooperative relationship, there are clearly some differences in their computing strategies, such as AI.
However, judging from the current development plans of both parties, there is actually a high degree of complementarity in their respective ecosystems.
Strategic watershed with Qualcomm
Based on MediaTek's statements and Qualcomm's recent earnings call...Share contentThis reveals the differences in the market strategies employed by the two chip manufacturers.
According to its financial statements, Qualcomm still derives about 70% of its revenue from mobile devices, and remains highly focused on "Edge AI" (edge computing). Although it emphasizes maintaining a high degree of autonomy in processor architecture design, it is still highly likely to be constrained by the consumer market. Although it announced last year that it would enter the industrial IoT market under the Dragonwing brand, given that its revenue still mainly comes from the consumer market, its development this year will inevitably be affected by factors such as memory shortages.
MediaTek emphasized that it will continue to focus on the consumer market, but will place more emphasis on ASIC and data center deployments, implying a certain degree of "risk aversion" in its market strategy. However, MediaTek stressed that while it will still prioritize consumer market development, the current shortage of memory components is expected to cause price adjustments in mobile phones and related products, thus affecting consumers' actual willingness to upgrade. Therefore, it anticipates that revenue in 2026 will primarily come from server products.
