Taiwan’s chip industry has become the target of an aggressive recruiting push from across the strait, and investigators have now moved against 17 Chinese companies they suspect of illegal talent poaching. The case lands inside a long-running standoff: Beijing claims the island as its own territory, while Taiwan accuses China of running espionage there.
The probe ran from July 13 through August 4. In that stretch, 330 agents searched 64 locations and interviewed 114 people, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau.
The firms under scrutiny allegedly hid their Chinese financial backers while setting up unlicensed offices and recruiting workers, conduct the bureau says threatens Taiwan’s competitive edge in semiconductors. The named companies span the supply chain, from semiconductor-equipment maker ACM Research Shanghai and IC designer Goke Microelectronics to battery supplier Zhuhai CosMX Battery and chip designer Actions Technology.
The raids follow a separate case last month in which prosecutors charged a former TSMC engineer with stealing the foundry’s core technology and trying to leak it to China.
For Taiwan, the stakes are clear: with AI demand reshaping the industry, engineers and process know-how have become strategic assets worth protecting, and the island is showing it will treat poaching as a national-security matter.
