BRAZIL – 2021/07/12: In this photo illustration, the homepage of the Quanta Computer website seen on … [+]
Growth in demand for computer equipment used for AI processing has lifted tech entrepreneur Barry Lam into the No. 1 spot among Taiwan members of the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.
Shares in Quanta Computer lost 1.7% on Wednesday from a record closing high a day earlier, but that wasn’t enough to offset an increase of nearly 160% in Quanta’s Taiwan-traded shares in the past six months that lifted Lam to No. 1. Lam is company chairman; Quanta is the parent of Quanta Cloud Technology, a server partner of California-based AI chip supplier Nvidia.
Lam, who founded Quanta in 1988 when Taiwan was disparagingly known as a “clone kingdom” for IBM PC knockoffs, was worth $9.2 billion on the list yesterday, compared with $5.6 billion on the 2023 Forbes Taiwan Rich List published in April. Lam has topped Zhang Congyuan, who at No. 2 has a fortune worth $7.7 billion.
A Shanghai native, Lam moved to Hong Kong after China’s revolution in 1949; he later studied and made his home in Taiwan.
Quanta ranked No. 711 on the 2023 Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s top publicly traded companies published in May.
Taiwan has the world’s 21st largest economy and is home to other world-ranking tech companies including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., or TSMC, which makes computer chips for Intel, and numerous Apple suppliers include Hon Hai, Pegatron, Lite-On Technology, Inventec, Catcher Technology, Largan Precision and Compeq Manufacturing.
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