San Francisco, March 14 (CNA) Around 1,000 participants, including over 200 venture capitalists, joined the Taiwan Demo Day in Silicon Valley on Saturday, marking the largest scale yet for the event held ahead of NVIDIA’s March 16-19 annual GTC conference next week.
The Taiwan Demo Day 2026 Spring, co-organized by the Taiwan Next Foundation and the Startup Island Taiwan — Silicon Valley Hub, took place at the Computer History Museum in California, showcasing 12 teams focused on Physical AI and Agentic AI technologies.
Katie Hsieh (謝凱婷), founder of the Taiwan Next Foundation, said the event highlighted the strength of the Taiwan-U.S. startup ecosystem, with six Taiwan-based teams selected by StarFab Accelerator joining others from the United States to showcase their innovations.
StarFab, founded in 2016 and regarded as Taiwan’s largest industry accelerator, is dedicated to fostering collaboration between startups and enterprises to accelerate innovation and growth, according to information from its official website.
Hsieh noted that nearly half of attendees came from the international startup community, expressing hope that the event would foster new connections for Taiwan-led companies.
Uly Su (蘇祐立), deputy director of the Startup Island Taiwan — Silicon Valley Hub, said there was strong interest from local and U.S. corporate investment divisions in Taiwan’s hardware technology, with this year’s attendance nearly double last year’s.
Joe Tolzmann, founder of Canadian software startup RocketPlan, told a CNA reporter that his company was seeking opportunities to integrate Taiwan’s leading hardware technologies into its operations.
StarFab Chairperson Amanda Liu (劉晏蓉) led the group of six Taiwanese startups, which were selected in partnership with NVIDIA and focus on manufacturing, healthcare and robotics.
Liu said she believes collaboration between large corporations and startups drives the best innovation, adding that these areas play to Taiwan’s industrial strengths and could enhance the global AI startup sector.
Among the participants, Red Pill Lab co-founder RH Shih (石千泓) said his team uses NVIDIA’s Isaac Lab framework to advance AI motion capture technologies that could be applied to home factories, emergency rescue operations, and remotely controlled lunar robotics missions.