00:00The U.S. is planning to add members to a new tech supply chain effort called Paxilica in the first quarter of next year.
00:06That's what U.S. State Department official Jacob Helberg said in a telephone briefing when asked why Taiwan was not included in the initial list.
00:14Our reporter Chris Gordon was on that call earlier and he joins us now from our Taipei newsroom.
00:18Chris, so what did Helberg say about Taiwan's status and whether Taiwan can become a member?
00:23Well, first of all, Helberg pushed back on the idea that Taiwan was not involved in this first summit.
00:34And he also made clear that the group's membership is not yet closed and new members could still be added.
00:41Now, this initiative, Paxilica, is a U.S.-led initiative aimed at securing and strengthening AI and technology supply chains.
00:49Now, the first summit named nine participating countries, including the U.S., and others central to the chip supply chain, like South Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands, but notably not Taiwan.
01:00Now, Taiwan was listed as a so-called guest contributor, along with the EU, Canada, and OECD.
01:07The declaration also listed several companies that participated, including chip giants like Samsung and SK Hynix, but not TSMC, the main supplier of AI chips at this moment.
01:18So, Helberg also said that Paxilica is still open and that they expect to add new members in early 2026.
01:27We're still in the process of determining membership of, you know, new members.
01:34There are, we expect to announce several new additions to the declaration in Q1 of next year that are based on conversations that we're already having.
01:45Now, we reached out to both Taiwan's foreign and economic ministries for a comment on this, but they have yet to get back to us.
01:53So, Chris, in all the countries that are working together in this initiative, the companies themselves, though, will they still be competing directly with each other?
02:03And is that going to create any sort of conflict?
02:05Yes, Helberg was asked directly about this as well.
02:11And, you know, Paxilica is designed to secure the entire supply chain from chips to critical minerals.
02:17And U.S. officials have said that China, which supplies most of the world's so-called rare earths, has been willing to use export controls on those critical materials as leverage.
02:28And so, when asked about competition among the members of Paxilica, Helberg said the real competition is with someone else.
02:37Before we actually get to a point where we're competitive with each other, the only player with which we're competing, with which we're all competing with right now, is not Singapore, Korea, Japan, the U.K., or Australia, or Israel.
02:54It's someone else, and I think everyone understands who that is.
03:01So, based on what we just heard from the undersecretary there, perhaps we can say that we know who is out of Paxilica.
03:08For Taiwan, the question now is, who's in?
03:11Eric?
03:12Thanks, Chris.
03:13That was Chris Gorn, reporting from our newsroom here in Taipei.
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