Artificial intelligence is driving a record boom in stock markets and creating vast riches that have propelled the collective fortune of the world’s 3,428 billionaires to $20.1 trillion this year. While the leaders of technology giants such as Nvidia and Google parent Alphabet are the faces of the AI boom, behind their stratospheric gains is a supply chain deeply rooted in Asia—which, in turn, is boosting the fortunes of tycoons from China to South Korea.

Amid a continued shift of semiconductor production away from the West, more than 70% of chips used globally are now produced in Asia, J.P. Morgan Asset Management noted in a November research report. The demand for chips used to train AI has propelled the net worth of Morris Chang, the 94-year-old founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), to $8.4 billion from $4.1 billion a year ago. It also boosted the share price of South Korea’s printed circuit board maker ISU Petasys, making Kim Sang-beom, 65-year-old chairman of its holding company ISU Group, a new member of the three-comma club with a $1.8 fortune tied to the AI wave.

Asia is also gaining a strong foothold in data centers. By 2030, there will be $800 billion in related investments across the region that will account for 40% of global capacity, according to credit rating and research firm Moody’s. Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries and Asia’s richest person with a net worth of $99.7 billion, announced in February that........

© Forbes