Taiwan booked its biggest month of export orders ever in July, a strong sign that the AI buildout is still running hot — good news for chipmakers, their suppliers, and anyone betting on AI hardware.

• Export orders jumped 62% from a year ago to a record, the 18th straight month of growth.
• Chips, servers, and other tech gear drove the gain, with cooling equipment for AI data centers surprising to the upside.
• Orders from the United States nearly doubled — the largest monthly jump on record.
• Even old-line industries got pulled along, as copper and steel demand rose to feed the AI supply chain.
• The one soft spot: optical products fell, because demand for display panels is still weak.

Outlook: Taiwan expects August orders to stay near record levels as the year-end consumer electronics season ramps up.