Goldman Sachs Report: AI Chip Super Profits Cause Taiwan's Current Account to Surge Past 20% of GDP, Forcing the Central Bank to Raise Interest Rates

Goldman Sachs predicts that the AI chip export boom will lift Taiwan’s current account surplus to above 20% of GDP, and South Korea will also surpass 10%, setting new historical highs for both countries—creating upward pressure on the interest rates of their central banks.
(Background recap: Goldman Sachs warns that if the S&P 500 falls below the key 6725 level, it could trigger $40 billion in selling pressure from CTA hedging funds next week.)
(Additional context: Goldman Sachs is following up by applying for a Bitcoin yield-based ETF; the call strategy “sacrifices upside for premiums,” intensifying the Wall Street crypto race.)

Table of Contents

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• Surplus from Computing Power
• Side Effects of Surplus
• K-Shaped Divergence in Asia

Taiwan’s current account surplus may exceed 20% of GDP this year. This figure was proposed by the Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs) research team in a report themed “AI-driven super surplus.”

Surplus from Computing Power

Goldman Sachs’ report says that South Korea and Taiwan’s current account surpluses—i.e., the total net amount of a country’s external trade, services, and investment income—are rapidly expanding because of AI chip exports. The report forecasts that Taiwan’s current account surplus will exceed 20% of GDP this year, while South Korea will break through 10%; both will reach historic highs.

Goldman Sachs has named this phenomenon “AI super surplus.” The underlying driver is global demand for building out AI infrastructure: data centers, servers, compute cards, and memory chips. Samsung and SK hynix in South Korea, and Taiwan’s TSMC, are all key beneficiaries in this supply chain.

Goldman Sachs analyst Andrew Tilton notes in the report that this is the strongest technology cycle in South Korea and Taiwan’s recorded history. Even though both countries are highly dependent on imported Middle Eastern energy, the expansion of this trade surplus is still enough to offset the impact of energy costs.

In terms of growth figures, Goldman Sachs predicts Taiwan’s GDP growth rate in 2026 will be close to 10%, above last year’s 8.7%; for South Korea, it is expected to rebound sharply from last year’s 1% to 2.5%.

Side Effects of Surplus

The problem is that a trade surplus is not only a good thing.

Goldman Sachs’ research team predicts that a current account surplus that continues to expand in scale will strengthen the exchange rates of both countries, creating upward pressure on central banks’ interest rates. Goldman Sachs currently forecasts that South Korea’s central bank will raise rates once in the third quarter and once in the fourth quarter, with each hike of 25 basis points; Taiwan’s central bank is expected to raise rates once in the second quarter and once in the fourth quarter, with each hike of 12.5 basis points.

Rate hikes mean higher borrowing costs, which theoretically reduces the willingness of consumers and businesses to spend and invest. For export-driven countries like South Korea and Taiwan, rate hikes may also further strengthen the domestic currency exchange rate, making exported goods relatively more expensive in overseas markets. This creates a structural dilemma: the stronger the AI exports, the stronger the currency, and the harder it becomes for central banks to maintain low interest rates—while corporate financing costs also rise accordingly.

Andrew Tilton says this trend is very likely to continue, even though geopolitical risks and energy supply remain uncertain factors. Goldman Sachs’ baseline scenario assumes that the global AI infrastructure build-out cycle will extend at least until before 2027, keeping chip export demand for South Korea and Taiwan at a high level.

K-Shaped Divergence in Asia

The Goldman Sachs report also presents a concept worth interpreting separately: “K-shaped divergence.”

In macroeconomics, a K-shaped recovery refers to the situation where, after the same shock, different groups follow sharply opposite trajectories: one goes upward, the other goes downward, forming a shape like the letter K. Goldman Sachs applies this concept to the regional level in Asia: South Korea and Taiwan accelerate upward due to AI chip exports, while other major Asian economies—including Southeast Asian countries that rely more heavily on manufacturing and traditional exports—face different growth pressures.

Bloomberg reports that this divergence is not coincidental. The concentration of the AI supply chain is extremely high: almost all of the world’s most advanced logic chips are produced by TSMC, while high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is led by SK hynix and Samsung. The positions held by other Asian economies in this supply chain are far less important than those of South Korea and Taiwan.

In other words, global demand for AI compute power is not evenly distributed among all Asian exporting countries; instead, it is highly concentrated in two economies that have already established barriers in wafer fabrication and packaging technologies. This concentration will continue to widen the gap between South Korea, Taiwan, and their neighboring countries over the next few years.

TSMC and SK hynix are not just companies—at this point in time, they are the primary macro variables for their respective countries. When a company’s export volume is large enough to change a country’s central bank interest-rate decision, the impact of AI is no longer just a technical issue.

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