Open Compute Project Brings AI Hardware Leaders to Taipei
By Kris Ma/Lily LaMattina
Behind the AI boom is a massive race to build the physical infrastructure that makes it possible. The 2026 Open Compute Project Summit is bringing together partners across the AI supply chain in Taipei, putting Taiwan at the center of the conversation.
REPORTER:
AI may look like a software revolution.
But behind every AI response is a massive race to build the physical infrastructure that makes it possible.
That is the focus of the 2026 Open Compute Project, or OCP, Summit, taking place in Taipei.
OCP is a global, industry-led initiative that promotes open designs and standards for data-center infrastructure.
Will Stewart (GLOBAL MARKET SEGMENT MANAGER - DATA CENTERS, HARTING):
We felt like we had the right technology. We just needed to be able to interface with the right people in order to get the right solution in the application. And so Open Compute Project was the perfect place for it. And we've been participating in OCP for about ten years now.
REPORTER:
OCP was launched by Meta in 2011, after the company redesigned its own data-center infrastructure.
The idea was to share those designs and engineering practices, rather than keep them proprietary.
REPORTER:
Today, data centers are the physical backbone of AI.
They house the chips, servers, and equipment to train AI models.
They also require enormous amounts of power, cooling, and other infrastructure.
And as AI demand grows, the goal of OCP is to make building these data centers more scalable and compatible across vendors.
Rich Symons (DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, AMPLINK):
OCP is very good at bringing it together and kind of getting some standards around that so we can, you know, uniformly move in the right direction, but keeping it open so vendors like us can be involved and other vendors can collaborate and make the end result better.
REPORTER:
That puts Taiwan at the center of the conversation.
Dirk Van Slyke (VICE PRESIDENT, OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT FOUNDATION):
We really see the importance of Taiwan in its place in the supply chain globally. I mean, so much is manufactured here. So much development is done here. So much technology is housed here and starts here that we would be crazy to ignore it. I mean, it's really got an important place worldwide. And so we, you know, this is really one of the first places we wanted to come.
REPORTER:
Hosting the OCP summit in Taiwan puts that global push for open hardware together with the companies actually building it.
Kris Ma and Lily LaMattina in Taipei for TaiwanPlus.
