November 5, 2025

2025 Asia Pacific Executive Forum

Event Recap

Event Recap

The GSA Asia Pacific Executive Forum (APEF), Global Semiconductor Alliance’s flagship event in Asia, gathered over 200 senior executives and thought leaders from across the global semiconductor ecosystem. The 2025 edition, hosted on November 5 in Taipei, covered a wide range of topics, including the current industry landscape and outlook, frontier technologies in silicon photonics, AI use cases, and global talent challenges.

 

Gallery

Program

All times are in Asia Standard Time (Taiwan Time)
9:30

Registration

10:00 Welcome

Welcome Remarks

  • Jodi Shelton / CEO & Co-Founder / GSA
10:05

Opening Remarks

Nicky Lu / Chairman & APAC Leadership Council / GSA; Chairman, Founder and CEO / Etron Technology

10:15 Presentation

Semiconductor Market Outlook

AI-Driven Growth Despite Uncertainty in Semiconductor Company Leadership, Public Policy, and Sustainable Innovation

The semiconductor industry is in the middle of a strong, concentrated growth cycle, fueled by unprecedented AI infrastructure investments, industry leadership supporting resiliency and long-term vision, and government policies leaning toward relaxing restrictions and collaborating with critical trading partners after the misguided communication on tariffs back in April. The rise of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) is accelerating demand for computing and is pervasive across the cloud and edge, where AI inference is expected to become increasingly disruptive. The semiconductor market is poised for a long, sustainable cycle as the industry is expected to reach $1T in revenues earlier than consensus views. Who are the vendors and technology suppliers that will make the right bets and capitalize on the growth?

  • Mario Morales / Vice President, Head of Corporate Strategy and Partnerships / AMD
View Presentation
10:35 Keynote

Driving Decarbonization and Digitalization in Asia

Infineon Technologies is a global semiconductor leader in power systems and IoT. In this keynote, Alexander Gorski, Chief Operations Officer of Infineon, explains how Infineon is preparing for further growth to serve the strong decarbonization and digitalization needs. Infineon not only differentiates by technology, but also in terms of quality and sustainability.

To drive growth in Asia, Infineon sets a clear focus on partnerships and local talent.

  • Alexander Gorski / COO and Member of the Management Board / Infineon
View Presentation
10:55 Presentation

Next-Gen Silicon: How Advanced ICs and Chips Power the AI Revolution

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is redefining the boundaries of computation, connectivity, and innovation—and at the heart of this transformation lies the integrated circuit (IC). From advanced logic chips that power massive AI training clusters to high-speed interconnects linking thousands of GPUs, modern ICs form the physical foundation of intelligent systems. The exponential growth of AI workloads demands unprecedented processing density, energy efficiency, and data movement—challenges being met through breakthroughs in chip design, packaging, and fabrication.
As transistor scaling pushes new frontiers, heterogeneous integration, chiplet architectures, and specialized AI accelerators are emerging as key enablers of scalable AI infrastructure. Equally vital are next-generation RFICs and high-speed interconnect chips operating in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz (THz) ranges, enabling ultra-low-latency communication between compute nodes and across data centers. Together, these technologies are shaping a seamless silicon ecosystem that connects, computes, and learns at scale.

This presentation explores how innovations in ICs—spanning digital, analog, and RF domains—are propelling the AI era and transforming data centers, edge devices, and global connectivity.

  • Maryam Rofougaran / Co-Founder and CEO / Movandi
View Presentation
11:15 Topic

Frontier Technologies in Silicon Photonics

Lighting the Path to the Future of AI Infrastructure

Nearly 60% of data center power today is consumed just moving data rather than processing it, a growing inefficiency that limits scalability, performance, and sustainability. As AI workloads expand, scale-up networks that connect GPUs within a domain are hitting a “power wall,” consuming more power and limiting scale-up domains to a single rack, thus causing rack power densities to increase unsustainably. Roughly 85% of all AI data traffic is scale-up, while only about 15% is scale-out. Solving the scale-up bottleneck is therefore where the greatest gains in efficiency can be achieved.

This talk explores how silicon photonics enables a path beyond these limits. By replacing copper with optical interconnects, data centers can achieve orders of magnitude improvements in reach, bandwidth, energy efficiency, and reliability, turning the bottleneck of data movement into a platform for growth. Presented by Celestial AI Co-Founder and COO Preet Virk, this session will examine industry trends, technology inflection points, and the collaborative innovation required to build the next generation of AI infrastructure.

  • Cindy Palar / General Manager, Celestial AI Singapore / Celestial AI

How AI, Semiconductors and Photonics Are Coming Together to Create the New Spatial Computing Era

This talk will describe the potential for Spatial Computing and how AI, Semiconductors and Photonics are coming together to make it a reality. As an example, it will highlight how nano-pixels made with phase change material are the beginning of Tunable Photonics with CMOS semiconductor compatibility and economics.

  • Mike Noonen / CEO / Swave
View Presentation

Lighting up the future of AI

Photonics has been a transformative force across the data communication stack. Its modern journey began in 1988 with TAT-8, the first transatlantic optical-fibre cable, a nearly 6,000 km network transmitting 280 Mbit/s (about 40,000 simultaneous calls, versus 4,000 on copper) at a cost of US $335 million. This milestone marked the dawn of a new era where photons replaced electrons, simultaneously advancing bandwidth, latency, reliability, power, and cost, the hallmarks of disruption.

This session traces the rapid evolution of photonics technologies leading to their central role in scaling AI compute for training and inference. It also explores the next decade of innovation in Silicon Photonics, illustrating how continued investment and adoption will extend the cultural and economic transformation that began with TAT-8, lighting up the future of human and machine intelligence.

  • Hamid Arabzadeh / Co-Founder and CEO / Ranovus
View Presentation
12:00

Networking Lunch

13:00 Presentation

Keynote

  • Bill Brennan / President and CEO / Credo
View Presentation
13:15 Sessions

AI in Action: Redefining Semiconductor Intelligence Across Cloud, Edge, and Design

From Chips to Intelligence: Fueling the AI Landscape

For over 25 years, Amazon’s AI development has evolved beyond internal applications to pioneering innovations across diverse industries. Our work encompasses market-leading technologies—including autonomous robotic warehouses, drone delivery systems, Alexa voice assistants, and Just Walk Out stores—with AWS’s AI capabilities underpinned by advanced semiconductor technology.

With our long time customer serving experiences at AWS, we are capable of designing purpose-built chips for computing and specific AI training and inference needs with a comprehensive partner ecosystem, AWS also accelerates AI advancement while strengthening semiconductor design and verification capabilities, enabling a more efficient AI value chain for businesses of all sizes.

Building on these capabilities, AWS has launched innovative programs in Taiwan to further advance technological integration for the global leading semiconductor and ICT ecosystem. The “Zero-Intervention Program” focuses on leveraging cloud and AI technologies to enhance different connected hardware platforms like drones, robots, and vehicles for its swarm fleet autonomous execution and management capabilities.

  • Robert Wang / Managing Director, Taiwan / AWS
View Presentation

The Growing Need for Collaboration Across the Semiconductor Industry - How to Leverage AI and Data Platforms

The semiconductor industry has always thrived on innovation, with multiple companies collaborating to launch the latest breakthrough innovations. Today the semiconductor industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation in how companies collaborate across the global supply chain. Traditionally reliant on isolated development, simple linear handoffs, and limited data sharing through spreadsheets, the industry now faces unprecedented complexity driven by 3D multi-vendor chiplet packaging.

This presentation introduces a new paradigm of AI-driven collaboration built on three foundational pillars. First, a secure data infrastructure leveraging an established network connecting over 300 manufacturing locations and 100+ OEMs, handling exabytes of exchanged data. Second, automated orchestration systems that align and abstract manufacturing data to accelerate business decisions, enabling real-time product costing, order status tracking, quality management, and WIP optimization both within enterprises and across external partners. Third, AI agents that operate autonomously within human-defined governance boundaries to analyze 100% of manufacturing data, addressing the current reality where only 5-10% of data is analyzed and 80% of data scientists’ time is spent on data preparation.

The convergence of these elements enables predictive test solutions, automated quality assurance, and seamless multi-party coordination across the complex semiconductor value chain. By combining human governance with AI execution at scale, the industry can move from reactive, stage-gate collaboration to continuous, data-driven operational excellence that meets the demands of modern semiconductor manufacturing.

  • Kimon Michaels / Co-Founder, Director, Executive Vice President, Products & Solutions / PDF Solutions
View Presentation

Challenges and Trends in Modern Edge AI Software Development

Edge AI shipments are accelerating quickly as AI gains adoption into real world applications from automotive to industrial and IOT. The rapid pace of adoption is leading to challenges in the development of AI software for these soon-to-be ubiquitous devices. This talk will share key challenges, tech trends emerging to resolve them, and a proposal to accelerate industry collaboration.

  • Mandali Khalesi / Vice President, AI Platform & Technology / Renesas
View Presentation

Panel - AI in Action

From photonics-driven architectures to edge intelligence and data analytics, AI is transforming every phase of semiconductor innovation. This panel brings together industry experts to explore how AI is being harnessed to accelerate design, optimize manufacturing, and enhance system performance. Discover how breakthroughs in optical interconnects, edge AI, and data-driven yield improvement are converging to create smarter, faster, and more efficient chips.

Moderator:
Mario Morales / Vice President, Head of Corporate Strategy and Partnerships / AMD
Panelists:
  • Kimon Michaels / Co-Founder, Director, Executive Vice President, Products & Solutions / PDF Solutions
  • Mandali Khalesi / Vice President, AI Platform & Technology / Renesas
  • Cindy Palar / General Manager, Celestial AI Singapore / Celestial AI
14:30

Networking Break

15:00 Sessions

Navigating Global Challenges

Beyond Mega Deals - Rethinking Growth and Capital Allocation Strategies

The global semiconductor industry is on track to surpass $1 trillion in annual demand by 2030, driven by AI advancements and surging market needs. Yet, this growth is shadowed by geopolitical tensions, regulatory scrutiny, and a marked decline in mega M&A deals—prompting a strategic pivot toward supply chain resiliency, talent development, and agile capital allocation. In this new era, companies that anticipate market shifts and build collaborative, regionally anchored ecosystems will capture sustainable growth and shape the future of the semiconductor landscape.

  • Josie Ananto / Partner/Principal / EY - Ernst & Young Solutions
View Presentation

Keynote Presentation

  • Donghui Lu / Corporate Vice President, Front-end Operations and Head of Micron Taiwan / Micron
View Presentation

Engineering Global Mobility: Building the Talent Bridge for the Semiconductor Era

As the semiconductor industry advances through design innovation and AI integration, global mobility has become central to sustaining growth. Magdalene will examine how immigration policy and talent strategy shape the sector’s competitiveness, with a spotlight on Taiwan’s expanding R&D landscape. She will discuss trends in cross-border hiring, challenges in attracting international talent, and the movement of skilled professionals between key markets — offering insights on how companies can build agile, globally connected teams.

  • Magdalene Tennant / Managing Director / Fragomen
View Presentation

Panel - Engineering Global Mobility: Building the Talent Bridge for the Semiconductor Era

As the semiconductor industry expands across new regions and technologies, talent has become its most critical and constrained resource. This session explores how companies and governments are engineering global mobility strategies to build, attract, and retain the skilled workforce needed for the next era of innovation. From cross-border collaboration and talent exchange programs to rethinking education pipelines and visa frameworks, we’ll examine how the industry can create a truly global talent bridge—one that connects expertise, accelerates innovation, and sustains growth across the semiconductor value chain.

Moderator:
Magdalene Tennant / Managing Director / Fragomen
Panelists:
  • Alice TY Chou / Global Head of Culture & Inclusive Workplace and Director of HRBP-CBRD / TSMC
  • Donghui Lu / Corporate Vice President, Front-end Operations and Head of Micron Taiwan / Micron
  • Jiun-Haw Lee / Associate Vice President for international Affairs; Professor / National Taiwan University
16:20 Panel

Executive Panel - Charting the Semiconductor Industry's Path Forward

This high-level discussion brings together senior executives to reflect on the global forces reshaping the semiconductor industry. With the rapid rise of AI, sustainability imperatives, and shifting market dynamics, panelists will share how collaboration across regions and ecosystems can unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth. The conversation will look ahead to how collective leadership, shared investment, and cross-border partnerships can strengthen the industry’s foundation and drive its next era of progress.

Moderator:
Josie Ananto / Partner & Principal / EY
Panelists:
  • Alexander Gorski / COO and Member of the Management Board / Infineon
  • Bill Brennan / President and CEO / Credo
  • Robert Wang / Managing Director, Taiwan / AWS
17:00

Closing Remarks

Speakers

Alexander Gorski

Infineon

Alexander Gorski

COO and Member of the Management Board

Infineon

Alice TY Chou

TSMC

Alice TY Chou

Global Head of Culture & Inclusive Workplace and Director of HRBP-CBRD

TSMC

Cindy Palar

Celestial AI

Cindy Palar

General Manager, Celestial AI Singapore

Celestial AI

Bill Brennan

Credo

Bill Brennan

President and CEO

Credo

Donghui Lu

Micron

Donghui Lu

Corporate Vice President, Front-End Operations and Head of Micron Taiwan

Micron

Hamid Arabzadeh

Ranovus

Hamid Arabzadeh

Co-Founder and CEO

Ranovus

Jiun-Haw Lee

National Taiwan University

Jiun-Haw Lee

Associate Vice President for international Affairs; Professor

National Taiwan University

Josie Ananto

EY

Josie Ananto

Partner & Principal

EY

Kimon Michaels

PDF Solutions

Kimon Michaels

Co-Founder, EVP of Products & Solutions and Director

PDF Solutions

Magdalene Tennant

Fragomen

Magdalene Tennant

Managing Director

Fragomen

Mandali Khalesi

Renesas

Mandali Khalesi

Vice President, AI Platform & Technology

Renesas

Mario Morales

AMD

Mario Morales

Vice President, Head of Corporate Strategy and Partnerships

AMD

Maryam Rofougaran

Movandi

Maryam Rofougaran

Co-Founder and CEO

Movandi

Mike Noonen

Swave Photonics

Mike Noonen

CEO

Swave Photonics

Robert Wang

AWS

Robert Wang

Managing Director, Taiwan

AWS

Sponsors

Travel

W Hotel, Taipei
W Hotel, Taipei

10 Zhongxiao East Road, Sec. 5, Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan
Taipei, Taiwan,  

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W Taipei is a five-star luxury hotel in Xinyi District, Taipei, occupying floors 8–31 of the Taipei City Hall Bus Station building. It has 405 rooms with views of Taipei 101, a rooftop pool, spa, and several upscale dining and bar venues.