Taiwan Builds Institutional Bridges to Silicon Valley

In January 2025, Taiwan’s National Development Council opened the Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley Hub in Palo Alto. The new site formalized a strategy to connect Taiwanese startups, public capital, laboratories, and creative industries with California based partners.

The hub is one part of a wider network. Venture investors backed by the National Development Fund operate from nearby Santa Clara, defense researchers work with U.S. contractors on drone systems, and cultural agencies cooperate with Netflix on programs for Taiwanese creators.

Together these four channels embed publicly supported Taiwanese teams inside U.S. tech and media supply chains.

Each channel grew out of domestic industrial policy. Taiwan’s semiconductor base, long running dual use research programs, and growing content sector now interact with counterpart institutions in the United States.

Physical proximity to venture capital firms, defense companies, and major streaming platforms gives participants access to partners that would be harder to reach through only remote cooperation.

Startup Hub as Landing Pad

According to the National Development Council, the Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley Hub is intended to match at least 100 Taiwanese startups with local companies and venture capitalists in its first year.

The hub provides co working space, conference and event venues, consulting, and landing services for founders.

The program focuses on technology sectors where Taiwan has manufacturing and process expertise but often needs design partnerships and customer access in the U.S. market. By working out of shared space in Palo Alto, founders can meet potential partners and clients in person and attend meetings without long haul travel.

Program managers also provide on site support for Taiwanese teams navigating legal, hiring, and business development questions. The hub lowers practical barriers to entering the U.S. market, in addition to its symbolic role as a physical presence in Silicon Valley.

In its press release, the National Development Council quoted Minister Liu Chin ching describing the hub’s establishment in Palo Alto as having symbolic importance. He stated it "will establish a two-way bridge between Taiwan and Silicon Valley's startup ecosystem."

The same release noted that Taiwan’s position in the global semiconductor and IC industries has attracted companies such as NVIDIA to set up regional operations in Taiwan, linking the new office to existing semiconductor strengths.

Venture Capital Conduit

Capital policy follows a similar pattern. To support priority industries, the National Development Fund has been approved by the Executive Yuan to invest in Taiwania Capital Management Corporation and its funds.

This investment can be up to 40 percent of each fund’s paid in capital, capped at NTD 2 billion per fund, according to an overview on the National Development Council website.

Taiwania Capital was set up as a public private investment platform to fund areas such as biotechnology, Internet of Things, smart machinery, green energy, national defense, new agriculture, and new materials. The goal described by the National Development Council is to support industrial innovation while aligning investment decisions with national industrial policy.

A related vehicle, Taiwania Capital Management USA Inc., is based in Santa Clara. Bloomberg lists the U.S. arm as a venture capital firm that invests in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, information security, sensors, robotics, and cloud infrastructure markets.

Locating a Taiwania entity in the United States gives fund managers a channel to back companies that operate directly in the West Coast ecosystem while reflecting priorities set in Taipei.

For U.S. founders and investors, it provides clear points of contact with a policy aligned Taiwanese investor that holds both domestic and international mandates.

Applied Defense R&D

Defense related technology cooperation follows its own track. In February 2026, Reuters reported that Taiwan’s National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) and U.S. contractor Kratos tested a Mighty Hornet IV attack drone that integrated a Taiwanese payload.

According to that report, NCSIST described the work as "a new milestone in U.S.-Taiwan defence technology collaboration." They said such cooperation could shorten development timelines and meet Taiwan’s needs for rapid countermeasures and long range preemptive strikes.

Kratos characterized the project as a step toward deeper cooperation with NCSIST on drone systems.

The arrangement illustrates how Taiwan’s defense research institutions work with U.S. companies on specific systems rather than only buying finished platforms. It also shows how technology integration and testing can be shared across borders while remaining anchored in each side’s procurement and export control rules.

Content Industry Pipeline

Media and cultural content policy extends the same institutional pattern into the creative sector. In 2024, Netflix announced a Netflix Fund for Creative Equity initiative in Taiwan in partnership with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA).

This program supports emerging local talent through training and professional development programs.

TAICCA describes itself as a government backed content industry accelerator. Working with a global streaming platform gives Taiwanese producers a structured way to learn production standards, develop projects, and position content for possible international distribution.

For Netflix, the program forms part of its wider fund for creative equity aimed at expanding opportunities for underrepresented creators worldwide. For Taiwan, it adds a content specific institution to a toolkit that already includes manufacturing and venture capital channels.

Conclusion

Taken together, the Palo Alto startup hub, Taiwania’s U.S. venture arm, the NCSIST Kratos drone tests, and the Netflix TAICCA program form an institutional network linking Taiwan to the U.S. West Coast.

Each operates under different ministries or corporate structures, but all give Taiwanese participants predictable ways to work with American counterparts.

The continued strength of these links will depend on future decisions in both Taipei and Washington, including export controls, investment review rules, and funding priorities.

For now, they show how Taiwan can use targeted hubs, funds, research labs, and content initiatives to turn broad industrial policy into specific collaborations with U.S. technology and media companies.

Sources

• National Development Council. "Onwards to Silicon Valley! NDC Overseas Startup Hub + 1." National Development Council, 2025.
• Bloomberg. "Taiwania Capital Management USA Inc. Company Profile and News." Bloomberg, 2026.
• Reuters. "Taiwan teams with US firm Kratos to build attack drones to counter China." Reuters, 2026.
• Netflix. "Netflix Launches Netflix Fund for Creative Equity in Taiwan." Netflix, 2024.
• National Development Council. "National Investment Company." National Development Council, 2017.