The revered head of Taiwan's semiconductor giant said cryptocurrencies would be a key driver for growth despite a bitcoin slump due to the threat of stricter regulations. Morris Chang's Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) produces chips that power Apple's iPhones and, more recently, that enable new businesses like artificial intelligence and digital currency mining.
Chang warned "the price of cryptocurrency is very volatile" and said for that reason TSMC would not invest in new manufacturing capacity specifically for cryptocurrencies, but that the sector would be covered by the firm's wider high-performance computing platform. "The demand has been very strong and we expect it to continue to be strong," Chang told analysts and investors at a briefing in Taipei.