Tachyum can help Slovakia transform its economy

The Slovak economy is known worldwide mainly for its automobile manufacturing industry. To diversify and strengthen Slovak economic development, it will be crucial to transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. Tachyum’s semiconductor R&D and its product development can be an important factor in achieving this transition. This was confirmed by members of the Taiwanese delegation, who recently visited Tachyum’s Bratislava offices in late March.

Taiwan’s experience with transforming from a labor-intensive economy into an innovation-driven economy, and along the way, earning its position as the world’s biggest hub for the semiconductor industry can be a great inspiration for Slovakia.

Exploring chip development opportunities

Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI) are on a mission to identify potential for long-term partnerships and bilateral collaborations in the Central and Eastern European region. They hope to understand the capabilities, readiness, and challenges in countries within this region, and to identify opportunities for the region, Slovakia included.

As Taiwan experts have said, development of the Slovak semiconductor industry is probably 30 years behind Taiwan, however, its strong position in the automotive industry and the presence of Tachyum with its R&D efforts to develop the world’s first universal chip that will be used to build the first human brain-scale AI supercomputer is an attractive target for collaboration. That’s why Tachyum was visited during the Delegations’ recent trip.

Taiwan, as a world leader in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, is an important partner for the top IT and semiconductor brands, including Tachyum. With a population of 23.45 million, Taiwan holds 63% of the global semiconductor market share. The country dominates the Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing market with more than 60% global share. It also has a strong position in IC packaging and testing, with more than 50% of the world’s share, as well as in IC Design (22%).

The European Union is encouraging greater investment from Taiwan, especially in its semiconductor firms. Slovakia has not been attractive to investors in the semiconductor business so far, but its success story in the automotive industry can be a good inspiration. The arrival of auto manufacturing plants in Slovakia has attracted subcontractors from other parts of the world to build their facilities in this region, to be closer to the place where the cars are being finalized.

In-depth discussions with experts

The visit of these semiconductor experts will help strengthen ties with Taiwanese suppliers and customers, including Tachyum’s target to establish a direct presence in this region. Taiwanese experts were interested in the company’s flagship Prodigy Universal Processor Chip, as well as in our activities in HPC, and our involvement in building the world’s fastest 64 AI exaflops supercomputer. Besides in-depth discussions with Tachyum’s founder and CEO Radoslav Danilak, they visited Tachyum’s labs and met our experts from the hardware, software, and AI departments.

It is not a secret that the world’s largest contract chipmaker and one of Taiwan’s largest companies, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), will be the place where the Tachyum Prodigy processor is going to be fabricated. TSMC accounts for 54% of the global semiconductor market share.

Aligned with EU intentions

Reinforcing the semiconductor ecosystem in the European Union and reducing external dependencies are also one of the main goals of The European Chips Act strategy adopted by the European Commission this February.

EU is heavily dependent on non-EU chip suppliers since it has only less than 10% of the global fabrication market. Chip manufacturing in Europe has dropped from 24% of global production capacity in 2000 to a current 8%. Almost 75% of the global semiconductor manufacturing capacity is concentrated in East Asia.

Both Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing industry and the EU’s strong innovative research environment and the supply of manufacturing equipment with a 23% share of the global market can benefit from this cooperation.

Time for upgrade

When it comes to Slovakia, the country needs to shift its economy to a higher level. Transformation of the economy under the influence of innovative technologies and global megatrends level is one of Slovakia’s priorities. The 2030 Strategy for Digital Transformation of Slovakia puts primary emphasis on innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC), which will become the new engine of economic growth, and which will strengthen competitiveness.

There is also space for upgrading the automotive industry. The increasing demand for autonomous automobile production will require the development of AI and high-performance chips while increasing amounts of data from cars will need higher computation speed and computing with much lower power requirements.

And that’s also the point where Tachyum can contribute with its unique universal processor. The automotive industry can benefit significantly from the location of the NSCC Supercomputer and use its computing capacity.