Taiwanese authorities have detained three current and former employees of the world’s largest chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), for allegedly stealing trade secrets, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Law enforcement officers questioned several suspects and witnesses late last month; searched their homes and detained three of them over “serious suspicions of violating national security laws,” the intellectual property branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office said on Tuesday.
TSMC produces more than 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductor chips that power everything from smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) applications to weapons, with key clients including the likes of Apple and Nvidia.
The major Taiwanese exporter raised suspicions that its “core technologies” may have been illegally accessed by former and current staffers with authorities after an internal investigation.
The prosecutor’s office said it will probe the motives behind the alleged theft of trade secrets and whether TSMC’s proprietary information had been leaked to other parties, in the first case of its kind since Taiwan tightened its national security law to protect its key technologies in 2022.
