UPS opens $100 million Taiwan logistics hub to meet tech boom demand

TAOYUAN, Taiwan, March 25 (Reuters) – United Parcel Service opened a new $100 million logistics centre in Taiwan on Wednesday, its largest in the Asia Pacific, riding a wave of demand from tech companies.

Taiwan is home to TSMC, the world’s top contract chip-maker and dominant supplier of the advanced semiconductors powering the boom in AI technologies.

UPS said the site in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan, a short drive from the island’s largest international airport, will also be used by Applied Materials, the largest U.S. semiconductor equipment maker, as an Asian distribution centre.

“Around 80% of the freight is high-tech,” Lauren Zhao, president of UPS Asia Pacific Supply Chain Solutions and Freight Forwarding, told reporters at the new facility.

“Everyone knows that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is the most advanced in the world, and the manufacturing processes related to the semiconductor industry are also where Taiwan is leading the world,” she added.

While UPS currently only operates out of Taoyuan airport, its managing director for Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Sam Hung, said the company was also considering flights to Kaohsiung in the south, depending on customer demand.

Kaohsiung is where TSMC is building a large new factory as part of a developing semiconductor cluster in southern Taiwan.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alexander Smith)