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What just happened? TSMC and President Trump have announced that the semiconductor giant will invest an extra $100 billion in the United States’ chip manufacturing industry, adding to a previous $65 billion commitment. The money will go toward building new chip facilities and an R&D center, creating 40,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of “high-paying, high-tech jobs” over the coming years.
TSMC says the $165 billion investment across four years represents the largest foreign direct investment in US history. The company’s expansion plans include three new chip fabrication plants and two advanced packaging facilities in in Arizona, along with a major research and development centre. The company had previously announced three of these facilities.
Trump called the investment a “tremendous move by the most powerful company in the world.”
“We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said. “It’s a matter of national security for us.”
TSMC’s $6.6 billion grant awarded under the US Chips Act was finalized last November. The company started producing 4nm chips at its current Arizona plant in January, something then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo hailed as “a big deal – never been done before, never in our history. And lots of people said it couldn’t happen.”
TSMC previously said it would open its second Arizona plant sometime in 2026, but that date was pushed back to 2027 or 2028 last year. The recently announced third fab will make chips on 2nm or even more advanced process technology by the end of the decade, according to the firm – the Taiwanese government recently gave TSMC permission to make its 2nm chips abroad.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump’s tariffs have made the US a more attractive proposition when overseas firms are looking for locations to build manufacturing facilities.
“They want to be in the greatest market in the world, and they want to avoid the tariffs. If they are not here, they have to suffer,” Lutnick said.
TSMC’s first Arizona fab hasn’t been smooth sailing. From finding skilled workers and dealing with local regulations to the cultural differences between US and Taiwanese management styles, the plant has faced plenty of challenges from the outset. It was recently reported that building semiconductor plants in the US takes twice as long and costs twice as much as in Taiwan.
Apple announced last week that it would make a $500 billion investment in US manufacturing over the next four years. As part of the package of investments, it will build a new advanced manufacturing facility in Houston that will produce servers, previously manufactured outside of the US, that support Apple Intelligence. The 250,000-square-foot factory is slated to open in 2026 and create thousands of jobs.
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