Biden to visit TSMC plant in Arizona as chipmaker triple investment
President Joe Biden will visit the Arizona plant of TSMC on Tuesday, as the Taiwanese chipmaker is poised to triple its investment in the factory to $40 billion, one of the largest foreign investments in U.S. history.
The investment is a big win for Biden after supply-chain issues disrupted the U.S. economy early in his presidency.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, TSMC founder Morris Chang, and the heads of chipmakers Micron, Sanjay Mehrotra, and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang are among others who will be in attendance at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd's facility in Phoenix to promote U.S. technology manufacturing.
The symbolic moving of the first equipment onto the shop floor of the new $12 billion facility will be held at a tool-in ceremony. The plant is scheduled to be operational in 2024.
TSMC is the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to major U.S. hardware manufacturers such as Apple and NVIDIA.
NVIDIA's Huang said in remarks prepared for Tuesday's event that TSMC's investment in the United States is a masterstroke and a game-changing development for the industry.
TSMC executives will announce plans to build a second nearby facility that will produce advanced chips by 2026.
The company will announce its second plant will produce advanced N 3 chips by 2026 and its current facility will develop even more cutting-edge chips than originally proposed, going from N 5 to N 4 in the near future.
TSMC's investment in Arizona will total $40 billion, making it the company's largest investment outside Taiwan and one of the largest foreign direct investments in U.S. history.
Biden has been trying to boost production of semiconductors after the pandemic caused supply-chain problems that resulted in shortages of chips for vehicles and many other items.
The White House report on supply-chain problems said last year that the US semiconductor production now accounts for only 12 per cent of the global total, down from 37 per cent two decades ago.
Taiwan's dominant position as a maker of chips has sparked concerns of over-reliance on the island, especially as China ramps up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.
China claims Taiwan as its territory despite the strong objections of the democratically elected government in Taipei, which rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims.
The $52.7 billion Chips and Science Act, signed by Biden in August, is intended to prevent a resurgence of supply-chain woes.
The president's travel is to mark a milestone that TSMC is reaching in bringing the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the US, said Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic CouncilWhite House National Economic Council.
Biden won the 2020 presidential election in Arizona after Republican Donald Trump won the state in 2016.
Biden intends to seek a second four-year term in 2024.