A closer look at how startups are turning local AI into global opportunity
Updated
March 24, 2026 6:25 PM
NVIDIA GTC 2026. PHOTO: NVIDIA
At NVIDIA GTC 2026 in Palo Alto, a group of 16 Taiwanese startups used the global AI stage to do more than showcase products—they tested how far their technologies could travel beyond domestic markets. The delegation, led by Startup Island TAIWAN Silicon Valley Hub with support from Taiwan’s National Development Council, reflected a broader shift in the country’s role within the AI ecosystem.
The startups represented a mix of emerging areas including digital twins, robotics, AI agents and healthcare, aligning closely with enterprise AI adoption trends. Some gained formal visibility within NVIDIA’s ecosystem, with companies such as MetAI and Spingence featured in the Inception Program, while six others presented their work in the conference’s poster gallery. These formats allowed them to engage directly with developers, enterprise users and potential partners rather than simply exhibiting technology.
A defining feature of Taiwan’s presence this year was how closely startups operated alongside established hardware companies such as ASUS, AAEON and Compal. This setup reflected a vertically integrated model where infrastructure and applications are developed together, offering a clearer path from product development to deployment. It also underscored Taiwan’s gradual shift from being primarily a hardware supplier to participating more actively across the full AI stack.
Activity around the conference extended well beyond the exhibition floor. A Taiwan Demo Day held during the week drew more than 1,000 registrations and nearly 600 in-person attendees, bringing startups into contact with close to 200 international investors. The event focused on structured introductions and deal flow, positioning startups in front of venture firms and corporate innovation teams looking for AI applications.
Alongside these formal sessions, Taiwan Startup Night provided a more informal but equally strategic setting. With over 100 curated participants, including founders, investors and corporate representatives, the gathering created space for early-stage conversations that could evolve into partnerships or market entry opportunities. These interactions, while less visible than on-stage presentations, are often where initial collaboration takes shape.
Taken together, the events around GTC point to a more coordinated approach to international expansion. Through platforms like Startup Island TAIWAN, the emphasis is not just on visibility but on building continuity—connecting startups with investors, partners and customers across multiple touchpoints in a single week. As AI development increasingly spans chips, systems and applications, Taiwan’s presence at GTC suggests a more integrated role, where the focus is as much on enabling global deployment as it is on developing the technology itself.
Keep Reading
A breakdown of the mission aiming to turn space into the next layer of digital infrastructure.
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:32 PM
The Hubble Space Telescope, one of the fist space infrastructures. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
PowerBank Corporation and Smartlink AI, the company behind Orbit AI, are preparing to send a very different kind of satellite into space. Their upcoming mission, scheduled for December 2025, aims to test what they call the world’s first “Orbital Cloud” — a system that moves parts of today’s digital infrastructure off the ground and into orbit. While satellites already handle GPS, TV signals and weather data, this project tries to do something bigger: turn space itself into a platform for computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and secure blockchain-based digital transactions. In essence, it marks the beginning of space-based cloud computing.
To understand why this matters, it is helpful to examine the limitations of our current systems. As AI tools grow more advanced, they require massive data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity, especially for cooling. These facilities depend on national power grids, face regulatory constraints and are concentrated in just a few regions. Meanwhile, global connectivity still struggles with inequalities, censorship, congestion and geopolitical bottlenecks. The Orbital Cloud is meant to plug these gaps by building a computing and communication layer above Earth — a solar-powered, space-cooled network in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that no single nation or company fully controls.
Orbit AI’s approach brings together two new systems. The first, called DeStarlink, is a decentralized satellite network designed for global internet-style connectivity and resilient communication. The second, DeStarAI, is a set of AI-focused in-orbit data centers placed directly on satellites, using space’s naturally cold environment instead of the energy-hungry cooling towers used on Earth. When these two ideas merge, the result is a floating digital layer where information can be transmitted, processed and verified without touching terrestrial infrastructure — a key shift in how AI workloads and cloud computing may be handled in the future.
PowerBank enters the picture by supplying the electricity and temperature-control technology needed to keep these satellites running. In space, sunlight is constant and uninterrupted — no clouds, no storms, no nighttime periods where panels lie idle. PowerBank plans to provide high-efficiency solar arrays and adaptive thermal systems that help the satellites manage heat in orbit. This collaboration marks a shift for PowerBank, which is expanding from traditional solar and battery projects into the realm of digital infrastructure, AI energy systems and next-generation satellite technology.
Describing the ambition behind this move, Dr. Richard Lu, CEO of PowerBank, said: “The next frontier of human innovation isn't just in space exploration, it's in building the infrastructure of tomorrow above the Earth”. He pointed to a future market that could surpass US$700 billion, driven by orbital satellites, AI computing in space, blockchain verification and solar-powered data systems. Integrating solar energy with orbital computing, he said, could help create “a globally sovereign, AI-enabled digital layer in space, which is a system that can help power finance, communications and critical infrastructure”.
Orbit AI’s Co-Founder and CEO, Gus Liu, describes their satellites as deliberately autonomous and intelligent. “Orbit AI is creating the first truly intelligent layer in orbit — satellites that compute, verify and optimize themselves autonomously”, he said, “The Orbital Cloud turns space into a platform for AI, blockchain and global connectivity. By leveraging solar-powered compute payloads and decentralized verification nodes, we are opening an entirely new, potentially US$700+ billion-dollar market opportunity — one that combines energy, data and sovereignty to reshape industries from finance to government and Web3. PowerBank's expertise in advanced solar energy systems will be significant in supporting this initiative."
This vision is not isolated. Earlier this year, Jeff Bezos echoed a similar idea at Italian Tech Week, saying: “We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centres in space in the next couple of decades. These giant training clusters will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7 — no clouds, no rain, no weather. The next step is going to be data centres and then other kinds of manufacturing.” His comments reflect a growing industry belief that space-based data centers will eventually outperform those on Earth.
The idea gains traction because the advantages are practical. Space offers free, constant solar power. It provides natural cooling, which is one of the costliest parts of running data centers on Earth. And above all, satellites in low-Earth orbit operate beyond national firewalls and political boundaries, making them more resilient to outages, censorship and conflict. For industries that rely heavily on secure connectivity and real-time data — finance, defense, AI, blockchain networks and global cloud providers — this could become an important alternative layer of infrastructure.
The upcoming Genesis-1 satellite is designed as a demonstration mission. It will test an Ethereum wallet, run a blockchain verification node and perform simple AI tasks in orbit. If the technology works as expected, Orbit AI plans to add several more satellites in 2026, expand into larger networks by 2027 and 2028 and begin full commercial operations by the decade’s end.
To build this system, Orbit AI plans to source technologies from some of the world’s most influential players: NVIDIA for AI processors, the Ethereum Foundation for blockchain tools, Galaxy Space and SparkX Satellite for satellite components, Galactic Energy for launch systems and AscendX Aerospace for advanced materials.
If successful, the Orbital Cloud could become the first step toward a world where part of humanity’s data, computing power and digital services run not in massive buildings on Earth, but in clusters of autonomous satellites illuminated by constant sunlight. For now, the journey begins with a single launch — a test satellite aiming to show that space can do far more than connect us. It may soon help power the systems that run our economies, technologies and global communication networks.