Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and known as Apple’s biggest iPhone assembler, has been benefiting from the AI boom as it assembles servers used to process AI work.
“We’re building the largest GB200 production facility on the planet,” said Mr Benjamin Ting, Foxconn senior vice-president for the cloud enterprise solutions business group.
Nvidia said in August that it started shipping Blackwell samples to its partners and customers after tweaking its design, and expected several billion dollars in revenue from these chips in the fourth quarter.
Mr Ting said the partnership between his company and Nvidia is very important and everyone is asking for the platform.
“The demand is awfully huge,” he added at the company’s annual tech day in Taipei, standing next to Nvidia’s vice-president for AI and robotics Deepu Talla.
Speaking to reporters later, Foxconn chairman Young Liu said the plant is being built in Mexico, and that the capacity would be “very, very enormous”.
Foxconn already has a large manufacturing presence in Mexico, investing more than US$500 million (S$652 million) to date in the state of Chihuahua.
Mr Liu added that the company’s supply chain is ready for the AI revolution – its manufacturing capabilities include the “advanced liquid cooling and heat dissipation technologies necessary to complement the GB200 server’s infrastructure”.
He said the company’s outlook in the current quarter is strong. On Oct 5, Foxconn posted its highest-ever revenue for the third quarter on robust demand for AI servers.
It has ambitious plans to diversify from building consumer electronics for Apple, hoping to use its tech know-how to offer contract manufacturing for electric vehicles (EVs) and also produce vehicles using models built by the Foxtron brand.
Asked about fierce competition in the global EV market amid slowing demand, Mr Liu said Foxconn is committed to the sector.
“It is the right direction and we will continue to work hard towards that,” he added, noting that with the EVs, the “engine barrier” no longer exists in car manufacturing.
Content Courtesy – Strait Times
