TAIPEI, April 30 (Reuters) - The chief executive of

Taiwan's top chip design company MediaTek ( MDTTF ) said on

Wednesday he was unable to give full-year earnings guidance due

to uncertainty about U.S. tariffs, but that he was generally

optimistic given strong AI demand.

Tech firms in Taiwan, home to the world's largest contract

chipmaker TSMC, face the possibility that U.S.

President Donald Trump will put tariffs on imported chips,

though earlier this month he paused earlier plans for sweeping

import charges on all countries for 90 days.

Asked on a quarterly earnings conference call about the

impact on the company, whose partners and clients include

artificial intelligence giant Nvidia ( NVDA ), from any future

U.S. tariffs, MediaTek's ( MDTTF ) CEO Rick Tsai said they were cautious

about the second half.

"The first half is reasonably positive. Because of

uncertainty we will not give, as we usually have, a full year

outlook this year," he said.

"But what I can say is: at least qualitatively, we are not

overly pessimistic. We strive to achieve still a good, positive

2025."

Tsai said he remained upbeat on the AI market.

"For the mid- to long-term, we believe the trend towards

ubiquitous AI remains intact and our growth prospects remain

solid," he added.

TSMC, in its earnings call earlier in April, gave a bullish

outlook for the year on robust demand for AI applications, and

did give full year guidance, adding that it had yet to see any

change in customer behaviour, despite tariff uncertainty.

MediaTek's ( MDTTF ) shares have fallen 4.6% so far this year,

outperforming the broader market's 12% dip. The

company's shares closed down 1.5% on Wednesday ahead of its

earnings call.