The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) would be receiving a US federal grant worth NT$211 billion ($6.6 billion) for further investment in the US, as well as up to NT$160 billion ($5 billion).
According to Nikkei Asia, the grant to TSMC was the second largest under the US's CHIPS and Science Act, with Intel projects receiving $8.5 billion in grants and$11 billion in loans.
"The CHIPS and Science Act provides TSMC the opportunity to make this unprecedented investment and to offer our foundry service of the most advanced manufacturing technologies in the United States," TSMC Chair Mark Liu said in the company's press release dated Monday (Apr. 8). "Our U.S. operations allow us to better support our US customers, which include several of the world's leading technology companies."
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also said that the funding was to allow the US to process "the most advanced semiconductor chips on the planet" as plans for TSMC to establish its first fab in the US—located in Arizona—is underway.
"These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy, but frankly, a 21st-century military and national security apparatus," she added.
According to TechCrunch, TSMC's Arizona fab was created to strengthen the US's supply of semiconductors as it sought to restore the manufacturing of chips amid escalating geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing.
If completed, the facility is expected to create about 6,000 jobs and tens of thousands of indirect supplier jobs. The company said it would produce 4-nanometer chips by 2025.
Founded in 1987, TSMC is the world's largest chipmaker and is a major supplier to Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia, Taiwan News reported.
