Biden will visit Taiwan's TSMC chip plant in Arizona, hail supply chain fixes WASHINGTON Reuters President Joe Biden will visit the Arizona plant of TSMC on Tuesday as the Taiwanese chipmaker is expected to invest more than 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 chipmaker Micron, Sanjay Mehrotra, and NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang are among others who will be joining 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 $12 billion facility will be the subject of 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 of major U.S. hardware manufacturers such as Apple and NVIDIA.
In a speech prepared for Tuesday's event, NVIDIA's Huang said that TSMC's investment in the United States is a masterstroke and a game-changing development for the industry.
The plan to build a second nearby facility that will produce advanced chips by 2026 will be announced by TSMC executives.
The company will announce its second plant will produce advanced N 3 chips by 2026 and that its current facility will develop even more cutting edge chips than originally proposed, going from N 5 to N 4 at the end of the day.
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 wanted to boost the production of semiconductors after the pandemic caused supply-chain problems that resulted in shortages of chips for vehicles and many other items.
U.S. semiconductor production now accounts for just 12% of the global total, a decrease from 37% two decades ago, according to a White House report on supply-chain problems last year.
China is increasing military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims because of Taiwan's dominant position as a maker of chips used in everything from cell phones and cars to fighter jets.
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, aims to prevent supply-chain woes.
Brian Deese, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said that the president's trip was a significant milestone in the progress of TSMC in bringing the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S.
After Republican Donald Trump won the state in 2016, Biden's victory in Arizona helped propel him to the White House.
Biden intends to seek a second four-year term in 2024.