When investors think about artificial intelligence (AI) and the chips powering this technology, one company tends to dominate the conversation: Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). It has become an undisputed barometer for AI adoption, riding the wave with its industry-leading GPUs and the sticky ecosystem of its CUDA software that keep developers in its orbit. Since the launch of ChatGPT about three years ago, Nvidia stock has surged nearly tenfold.

Here’s the twist: While Nvidia commands the spotlight today, it may be Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) that holds the real keys to growth as we look toward the next decade. Below, I’ll unpack why Taiwan Semi — or TSMC, as it’s often called — isn’t just riding the AI wave, but rather is building the foundation that brings the industry to life.

What makes Taiwan Semi so critical is its role as the backbone of the semiconductor ecosystem. Its foundry operations serve as the lifeblood of the industry, transforming complex chip designs into the physical processors that power myriad generative AI applications.

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A digital assistant that helps people navigate government services online has become the first “virtually created” AI cabinet minister and put in charge of public procurement in an attempt to cut down on corruption, the Albanian prime minister has said.

Diella, which means Sun in Albanian, has been advising users on the state’s e-Albania portal since January, helping them through voice commands with the full range of bureaucratic tasks they need to perform in order to access about 95% of citizen services digitally.

“Diella, the first cabinet member who is not physically present, but has been virtually created by AI”, would help make Albania “a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption”, Edi Rama said on Thursday.

Announcing the makeup of his fourth consecutive government at the ruling Socialist party conference in Tirana, Rama said Diella, who on the e-Albania portal is dressed in traditional Albanian costume, would become “the servant of public procurement”.

Responsibility for deciding the winners of public tenders would be removed from government ministries in a “step-by-step” process and handled by artificial intelligence to ensure “all public spending in the tender process is 100% clear”, he said.

Diella would examine every tender in which the government contracts private companies and objectively assess the merits of each, said Rama, who was re-elected in May and has previously said he sees AI as a potentially effective anti-corruption tool that would eliminate bribes, threats and conflicts of interest.

Public tenders have long been a source of corruption scandals in Albania, which experts say is a hub for international gangs seeking to launder money from trafficking drugs and weapons and where graft has extended into the upper reaches of government.

Albanian media praised the move as “a major transformation in the way the Albanian government conceives and exercises administrative power, introducing technology not only as a tool, but also as an active participant in governance”.

Not everyone was convinced, however. “In Albania, even Diella will be corrupted,” commented one Facebook user.

The push for artificial intelligence-related investments in Western Pennsylvania continued Thursday with a second conference that brought together business leaders and elected officials. 

Not in attendance this time was President Donald Trump, who headlined a July 15 celebration of AI opportunity at Carnegie Mellon University.

This time Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sen. David McCormick and others converged in Bakery Square in Larimer to emphasize emerging public-private initiatives in anticipation of growing data center development and other artificial intelligence-related infrastructure including power plants. 

Here’s what speakers and attendees at the summit were saying.

AI is not a fad

As regional leaders and business investors consider their options, BNY Mellon’s CEO Robin Vince cautioned against not taking AI seriously.

“The way to get left behind in the next 10 years is to not care about AI,” Vince said

“AI is transforming everything,” said Selin Song during Thursday’s event. As president of Google Customer Solutions, Song said that the company’s recent investment of $25 million across the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland grid will help give AI training access to the more than 1 million small businesses in the state.

Google isn’t the only game in town 

Shapiro noted that Amazon recently announced plans to spend at least $20 billion to establish multiple high-tech cloud computing and AI innovation campuses across the state.

“This is a generational change,” Shapiro said, calling it the largest private sector investment in Pennsylvania’s history. “This is our next chapter in innovative growth. It all fits together. This new investment is beyond data center 1.0 that we saw in Virginia.”   

Fracking concerns elevated

With all of the plans for new power-hungry data centers, some are concerned that the AI push will create more environmental destruction. Outside the summit, Food & Water Watch Pennsylvania cautioned that the interest in AI development is a “Trojan horse” for more natural gas fracking. Amid President Donald Trump’s attempts to dismantle wind and solar power, alternatives to natural gas appear limited. 

Nuclear ready for its moment

But one possible alternative was raised at the AI conference by Westinghouse Electric Company’s interim CEO Dan Summer.

The Pittsburgh-headquartered organization is leading a renewed interest in nuclear energy with plans to build a number of its AP 1000 reactors to help match energy needs and capabilities. 

Summer said that the company is partnering with Google, allowing them to leverage Google’s AI capabilities “with our nuclear operations to construct new nuclear here.” 

China vs. ‘heroes’

Underlying much of the AI activity: concerns with China’s work in this field

“With its vast resources, enormous capital, energy, workforce, the Chinese government is leveraging its resources to beat the United States in AI development,” said Nazak Nikakhtar, a national security and international trade attorney who chaired one of the panels Thursday. 

Speaking to EQT’s CEO Toby Rice and Groq executive Ian Andrews, Nikakhtar outlined some of the challenges she saw in U.S. development of AI technology compared to China. 

“We are attempting to leverage, now, our own resources, albeit in some respects much more limited vis-a-vis what China has, to accelerate AI leadership here in the United States and beat China,” she said. “But we’re somewhat constrained by the resources we have, by our population, by workforce, capital.”

Rice said in response that the natural resources his company is extracting will help power the country’s ability to compete with China. 

Rice drew a link between the 9/11 terror attacks 24 years earlier and the “urgency” of competing with China in AI.

“People are looking to take down American economies,” Rice said. “And we have heroes. Never forget. And I do believe that us winning this race against China in AI is going to be one of the most heroic things we’re going to do.”

Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.