TSMC is investing $100 billion to build chip plants in the U.S.
In This Story
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is investing billions of dollars to boost chip manufacturing in the U.S.
The Taiwanese chipmaker plans to invest at least $100 billion in building out plants in the U.S. over the next four years, the Trump administration announced on Monday.
Most of the investment will be focused in Arizona where TSMC (TSM-4.71%) is already building a chipmaking hub, President Donald Trump said during a briefing. He added that the plan includes building five cutting-edge chip fabrication facilities in Arizona that will create thousands of high-paying jobs.
“The most powerful AI chips in the world will be made right here in America,” Trump said. “It will be a big percentage of the chips made by this company.”
The announcement brings TSMC’s total U.S. investment to $165 billion.
“This will create hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity and boost America’s dominance in artificial intelligence and beyond,” Trump said. “Semiconductors are the backbone of the 21st century economy and, really, without the semiconductors there is no economy.”
Trump said the U.S. “must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here in American factories with American skill and American labor.”
“We are going to produce many AI chips,” TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei said during the announcement. “We are going to produce many tools to support the AI progress and to support the smartphone progress.”
In October, Bloomberg reported that the chipmaker’s chip production yields — or the number of functional chips it can produce per manufacturing process — are about four percentage points higher at its Phoenix, Arizona site than those of comparable fabs in Taiwan. The company’s first major U.S. hub includes two chipmaking facilities expected to begin production this year and in 2028.
Meanwhile, TSMC was awarded up to $6.6 billion in direct funding under the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act in November. Some of the funding — which will go toward its Phoenix hub — will be used to build a third fab, the Biden administration said, adding that it will put the U.S. on track to produce 20% of the world’s advanced chips by 2030.
In September, independent journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC is manufacturing A16 chips for Apple — one of its major customers — at Phase 1 of its Fab 21 in Phoenix. Production volume of the A16, which was launched in the iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, “will ramp up considerably” after the second stage of TSMC’s Phase 1 fab is finished, Taiwan-based Culpan said, adding that TSMC’s U.S. site on track to reach its target in the first half of next year.
