Chip Maker Leases Offices in Santa Clara Amid AI Boom

Nvidia isn’t the only chip maker growing in Santa Clara.

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer MediaTek signed a lease for nearly 111,000 square feet of offices in the Silicon Valley city, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. The offices are in the 5453 Great America Parkway building, part of the Irvine Company-owned Santa Clara Gateway complex.

MediaTek currently has a lease for roughly 80,000 square feet at 2840 Junction Avenue in San Jose, set to expire next February, per CoStar. It will join other tenants at Santa Clara Gateway — including Siemens, Arista Networks and Versa Networks — and ranks among some of the city’s biggest leases in the second quarter, rivaling Illumio’s almost 120,000 square feet at the Campus at Scott complex.

The Santa Clara Gateway campus spans six office buildings with amenities including two fitness centers, a basketball court and lounge space. The lease aligns with a wider Bay Area trend of tenants — especially those in or adjacent to the booming artificial intelligence industry — preferring amenitized spaces over older properties.

Taiwan-based MediaTek designs and develops system-on-chip products in a market increasingly hungry for computing power with the growing needs of AI. The company plans to focus more on automotive applications and data center expansion, an executive said in April, according to the Business Journal.

MediaTek’s move follows a lease by another chip maker, Etched, which leased 80,000 square feet in Milpitas last month, representing one of the largest research and development leases in Silicon Valley so far this year.

Nvidia, which has the highest valuation of any company in the world and is a key player in the AI chip market, has been doubling down on its commitment to its hometown of Santa Clara over the past year. Last May, the multi-trillion-dollar company bought a 10-building office and research campus at 2348 and 2350 Walsh Avenue, across the street from its headquarters, for $123 million, following a separate four-building buy in Santa Clara for an undisclosed amount a few months prior, The Real Deal previously reported. The Jensen Huang-led giant went on to buy another headquarters-adjacent building at 2701 San Tomas Expressway last September for $83 million.

— Chris Malone Méndez