From ASML, TSMC and NVIDIA to Micron, Intel, Google and Salesforce, CAREhER’s first AI & SHE Circle brought together women across hardware, intelligence and applications — with a Taiwan × Japan dining experience curated by Sayaka Wada.
On August 20, CAREhER welcomed 60 leaders to Mountain & Sea House in Taipei for the inaugural AI & SHE Circle Founding Table, bringing together women shaping AI across semiconductors, infrastructure, software, healthcare, finance, quantum computing and enterprise applications.
Executives joined us from more than ten global technology and infrastructure companies, including ASML, TSMC, NVIDIA, Intel, Google, Micron, Salesforce, Supermicro, GE Vernova and Bechtel, alongside founders, investors and women building the next generation of AI businesses.
The room was deliberately cross-border, with Taiwanese leaders joined by Dutch, American, Japanese, Singaporean and Israeli guests, as well as executives with responsibilities across Japan, North Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
AI is often spoken about as one industry. In reality, it is an ecosystem. Someone builds the machines, someone designs the chips and infrastructure, someone develops the intelligence, and someone decides how those capabilities change healthcare, finance, fashion, energy and the workplace.
AI & SHE Circle was created to connect the women making those decisions.
What are women in AI betting on next?
Opening the luncheon, Grace Wang, Vice President and General Manager of ASML Taiwan and Co-Chair of AI & SHE Circle, helped set the direction for the community: a place where women leading different parts of the AI ecosystem can know one another beyond their own companies, functions and industries.
AI & SHE is not designed as another women-in-tech conference. It is a leadership community for senior technical and business leaders working across the full AI stack — hardware, intelligence and applications.
Rather than asking our Founding Council to give formal presentations, we asked each of them one question:
What are you betting on?
Their answers revealed how differently the next phase of AI may unfold.
Debbie Wu, founder of MYMIKA, is betting on AI × personalization. She sees consumer technology moving beyond recommendation toward experiences that understand individual taste, identity and context — particularly in fashion and lifestyle.
Sharon Fan, Managing Director, Medalliance, is betting on AI × healthcare. As AI makes capabilities once concentrated inside hospitals and specialized institutions more accessible, the opportunity is not only better technology, but broader participation in healthcare innovation.
Jane Lanhee Lee, founder of QuantumJane, is looking toward the convergence of quantum computing, AI and supercomputing, and the potential to address difficult challenges in energy, climate, medicine and new materials.
Different bets, but one shared idea: the next chapter of AI will be shaped not only by who builds the technology, but by who can translate it into industries, organizations and human lives.
Taiwan × Japan, expressed through food
The cross-border conversation extended to the table itself.
CAREhER invited Tokyo-based culinary curator Sayaka Wada to work with Michelin-starred Mountain & Sea House on a special menu celebrating the relationship between Taiwan and Japan.
Sayaka began with obanzai, the seasonal, home-style cooking associated with Japan, while Mountain & Sea House drew from Taiwan’s tradition of 清粥小菜 — qingzhou xiaocai, where rice porridge is surrounded by small dishes, preserved ingredients and familiar flavors.
The intention was not to create fusion.
Instead, Sayaka curated a conversation between two culinary traditions, allowing Taiwanese ingredients and food memories to sit alongside Japanese ideas of seasonality, fermentation and presentation without asking either culture to lose its identity.
Between conversations about semiconductors and enterprise AI came conversations about ingredients, childhood breakfasts and the foods that immediately feel like home.
Food and culture are not decorative details. A thoughtfully designed experience changes the way people meet. It slows down a room, creates curiosity and gives people a way to connect before they know exactly what professional interests they share.
The menu reflected the idea behind AI & SHE itself: Taiwan and Japan, hardware and software, technology and culture, global companies and emerging founders — different perspectives sharing one table.
Building a cross-border network for women shaping AI
We were also honored to welcome former Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng and Kazuyuki Katayama, Representative of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, reflecting the wider Taiwan–Japan relationships surrounding the gathering.
But perhaps the clearest sign that the afternoon had worked came after the formal program ended. People stayed.
A semiconductor executive met a healthcare founder. Women from multinational companies exchanged ideas with entrepreneurs. Hardware met software, and software met applications.
Taiwan sits at the center of the global semiconductor and AI infrastructure ecosystem, yet women leading different parts of it do not always have opportunities to build relationships beyond their own organizations.
That is what AI & SHE wants to change.
Over the past six years, CAREhER has connected more than 6,000 women leaders across Asia Pacific. AI & SHE is the next chapter: a focused network for women shaping one of the most consequential transformations across every industry.
The Founding Table was only the beginning.
Upcoming AI & SHE gatherings will move between leadership tables, industry salons and hands-on workshops, exploring healthcare, fashion, culture, future skills, AI adoption and the changing workplace.
The questions will continue to evolve: How do organizations become AI-native? How do leaders move people from awareness to adoption? What happens when AI capability becomes more accessible? And as new opportunities emerge, who gets to participate in them?
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Join AI & SHE
If you are a woman working across AI, semiconductors, technology, healthcare, finance, investment or enterprise transformation, AI & SHE Circle is part of the CAREhER membership community.
- Become a CAREhER Globalist Member to join upcoming AI & SHE gatherings and access our leadership community across Asia Pacific.
- For companies interested in AI leadership programs, executive engagement, employer branding, customer communities or cross-border partnerships, contact CAREhER to explore how we can build a program together.
