By Wen-Yee Lee and Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Taiwan President Lai Ching-te opened a new cloud computing centre on Friday equipped with a powerful supercomputer, part of the chip powerhouse island's "sovereign AI" effort.

The government wants the new cloud facility, in the southern city of Tainan, to become a key engine for artificial intelligence development and a base for innovation in high-performance computing, telecommunications, cloud services and digital content.

Lai, in comments broadcast live on Taiwanese television stations, said the centre symbolised Taiwan moving from being a major hardware manufacturer toward becoming an "AI island", developing "sovereign AI".

The 15-megawatt facility hosts the "Nano 4" supercomputer, the largest and latest supercomputer in Taiwan. It is equipped with 1,760 of Nvidia's NVDA.O H200 chips and 144 of its Blackwell chips, according to Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council.

U.S. chip designer Nvidia's main chip supplier is Taiwan's TSMC 2330.TW, the world's largest contract chipmaker and the backbone of the island's economy.

"This proves to the world that Taiwan not only has advanced chip manufacturing, but also possesses world-class strength in system integration and high-performance computing," Lai said.

It is part of Taiwan's "Ten Major AI Infrastructure Projects" initiative unveiled in July aimed at boosting the island's role in strengthening its AI capabilities and helping to accelerate its push to build a "smart technology island".

(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jamie Freed)

((wen-yee.lee@thomsonreuters.com))