TSMC CEO has announced plans with the US President, the latest company to make an investment commitment since Donald Trump took office.
Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co says it will invest $100 million in the US and will build five additional factories over the next few years.
TSMC CEO CC Wei announced the plans on Monday at a White House meeting with US President Donald Trump. “We have to be able to build the chips and semiconductors we need here,” Trump said. “It’s a national security issue for us.”
TSMC, the world’s largest contracted chip manufacturer, is a leading supplier of major US companies such as Apple, Intel and Nvidia.
The $100 million expenditure, which boosts domestic production and reduces the US’s dependence on Asian-made semiconductors, is in addition to the announcement of large-scale investments ahead of time. In April, TSMC agreed to expand its planned US investment from $25 billion to $650 billion, adding its third Arizona plant by 2030.
In 2022, former US President Joe Biden signed Chips Science Law, a $280 billion law, to reinvigorate chip manufacturing in the United States, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic. This included subsidies from the US unit of TSMC in Phoenix, Arizona.
During the pandemic, chip factories, especially those that manufacture most processors, will be shut down. This had a ripple effect that led to wider issues, including closing assembly lines at automotive factories and fueling inflation.
Trump has criticised the law and has taken a different approach, threatening to instead impose high tariffs on imported chips and bring chip production back to the US.
Trump also said companies like TSMC don’t need federal tax incentives.
investment
Trump has hosted multiple business leaders at the White House since taking office in January to promote a series of investments aimed at showing his leadership as a boon to the US economy.
In February, Apple said it would invest $500 million over the next four years. Emirati billionaires Hussain Sajwani and Softbank have also pledged billions of dollars in the US.
TSMC said on Monday that it will “more on discussing a shared vision for innovation and growth in the semiconductor industry and exploring ways to strengthen the technology sector with our customers.”
Under Biden, the US Department of Commerce has persuaded all five cutting-edge semiconductor companies to find US factories as part of a program to address national security risks from imported chips.
Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was a “good down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he refused to commit grants already approved by the department and said he “want to read, analyze and understand them.”
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