MediaTek to roll out 2 nm, world’s smallest chip in September: CEO

MediaTek’s CEO Rick Tsai waves
| Photo Credit:
ANN WANG

MediaTek, the Taiwan-based semiconductor giant, announced on Tuesday its plans to “tape out” the world’s smallest first 2-nanometer (2nm) chips in September. This significant development, revealed at Computex 2025, positions MediaTek to aggressively compete in the rapidly-evolving landscape of AI-enabled, high-performance edge computing.

Rick Tsai, Vice-Chairman and CEO of MediaTek, emphasised the escalating demand for computational power, stating, “Computational complexity is really increasing exponentially every year, so the compute will take 2nm or beyond.” Currently, the smallest chip in global production stands at 3nm.

MediaTek will collaborate with the world’s largest semiconductor contract manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), for the production of these next-generation chips. The 2nm chips are projected to deliver a 15 per cent improvement in performance and a 25 per cent reduction in power consumption compared to existing 3nm technology.

Tsai highlighted that the shift to 2nm will enable the creation of “high-volume chips” crucial for the evolving demands of data centres, which are increasingly seeking “lower power, higher performance,” and better total cost of ownership (TCO). He acknowledged the inherent challenges this complexity presents for chip companies like MediaTek.

To maintain technological leadership, MediaTek is heavily investing in its intellectual property (IP) portfolio, fostering close collaborations with ecosystem partners and developing strategic engagement models with data centre customers. Tsai explained, “We are being not only capable in providing the technology, the IPs, or the architecture design, whether we can improve the TCO together, but also we are flexible in how we work with our customers.”

Industry analysts view MediaTek’s 2nm announcement as a major global semiconductor achievement, underscoring its strengthened partnership with industry leaders like TSMC. Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, noted, “Securing and advancing capacity in cutting-edge fabs is incredibly challenging, making this a major milestone.” He suggested that this 2nm chip is likely a custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or a smartphone chip, engineered for substantial efficiency gains through innovative structural design.

Expanding focus

Beyond advanced computing, MediaTek is also expanding its focus on connectivity technologies. Tsai affirmed the company’s commitment to the future of wireless communication: “As the world moves gradually into the 6G era, I promise you, 6G technology will come with AI assistance, and MediaTek will be in a perfect position to develop, bring up the 6G capability to the world with our AI capability,” he added.

While the immediate impact of this new chip in India may be limited due to the current absence of extensive data centres or graphics processing units (GPUs) of this scale, its global significance in semiconductor advancement is undeniable.

The writer is in Taiwan at the invitation of MediaTek

Published on May 20, 2025