By Wen-Yee Lee

TAIPEI, May 27 (Reuters) – Nvidia’s CEO said on Wednesday the chip company plans to invest around $150 ‌billion a year in Taiwan, terming it the “epicentre” ‌of the AI revolution and predicting it will be the world’s tech manufacturing ​hub for a long time.

“Four years ago, five years ago, Nvidia was spending about $10, $15 billion dollars a year in Taiwan. Now we’re spending $100, going to $150 billion dollars in Taiwan each year,”

Jensen ‌Huang, chief of ⁠the $5 trillion chipmaker, said.

Huang was speaking at a launch celebration in Taipei for the chip company’s ⁠planned Taiwan headquarters, which he said will break ground this year and aims to become operational in 2030. He did not ​provide a ​timeframe for the number of ​years the company plans ‌to invest $150 billion.

The Taiwan headquarters will bring Nvidia closer to TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker which makes many of the advanced semiconductors powering the trend towards AI and is a major supplier to the U.S. tech company.

“Taiwan is booming,” ‌Huang said on stage at the ​celebration which was attended by his ​parents, wife, daughter and ​son in addition to around 1,000 employees.

“Taiwan is ‌the epicentre of the AI ​revolution. This is ​where the chips come, packaging comes, this is where the systems are made, this is where AI supercomputers ​were created. The ‌number of partners we work with here in Taiwan, ​incredible.”

(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee in Taipei; Editing by Anne ​Marie Roantree and Muralikumar Anantharaman)