Technology companies based in Taiwan face the possibility that newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump will follow through with this plan of applying tariffs on imported chips, meaning that MediaTek will also be included in this list. This move will subsequently lead to more expensive chipsets from the fabless semiconductor, affecting its revenue and growth for the year. MediaTek’s CEO stated on Friday that the company has been running simulations on these U.S. tariffs, likely hoping that a positive outcome materializes.
Chief Executive of MediaTek also commented on DeepSeek, saying that ‘we actually are getting more optimistic’
As major semiconductor companies around the world buckle their seatbelts for what could be a potential price hike caused by U.S. tariffs, Reuters reports that MediaTek’s CEO, Rick Tsai, stated that for this year, the situation would be ‘manageable.’ During his campaign, President Donald Trump complained that Taiwan had stolen the American semiconductor business. The tariffs are not just going to be applied to semiconductors but also to pharmaceuticals and steel.
This move will encourage companies like MediaTek to set up production facilities in the U.S. in an effort to create jobs and produce silicon locally. Unfortunately, Trump has not given a timeframe, but MediaTek will still prepare for the worst. Additionally, setting up facilities overseas cannot happen overnight, and such companies also need to take into consideration that labor costs in the U.S. will be higher, which will impact chip-making costs. Tsai has mentioned below that the company is running simulations, but there are a multitude of variables, so providing an accurate estimate is not possible at this time.
“Of course we’re not just sitting here doing nothing. We are making our own assumptions, doing some simulations. You can define manageable by many different ways, but from my end I think it’s manageable for us for 2025. There are so many variables, so it’s very difficult to give an accurate estimate now. It’s very complex.”
Tsai also gave his take on DeepSeek, believing it to be an optimistic turn of events. He states that the trend is ‘democratizing AI,’ and it will spread to more average users around the world.
News Source: Reuters
