Biggest Onshoring in US History Will Rebuild America’s Chip Industry

The biggest onshoring in US history: TSMC’s $12 billion investment in an Arizona semiconductor chip fab has grown to a $300 billion investment in semiconductors in the US – the biggest in history. Production at the new plan is targeted for 2024. TSMC’s new plant would make chips branded as having 5-nanometer transistors, the tiniest, fastest and most power-efficient ones manufactured today.

In helping to broker the agreement, the US State Department was committed to the national security strategic imperative of securing the semiconductor supply chain and bringing high-tech manufacturing back home where it belongs. “Our State and Commerce Department team brokered a $12-billion deal with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to onshore a state-of-the-art facility in Arizona, said Keith Krach, Under Secretary of State. “Our strategy (and our hope) was that TSMC’s announcement would provide the necessary impetus to spark three additional areas to further fortify a trusted supply chain by: (1) attracting TSMC’s broad ecosystem of suppliers; (2) persuading other chip companies to produce in US, especially as Intel and Samsung; (3) inspiring universities to develop engineering curriculum focused on semiconductor manufacturing and R&D. We also believed TSMC was the crucial catalyst to design a bipartisan bill (CHIPS for America) providing the necessary funding to bring back American semiconductor manufacturing. We also hoped the deal would inspire congress to pass the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act that we architected with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Senator Todd Young to boost investment in high-tech research.”