Trump announces Taiwanese chip giant’s $100bn investment in US plants

The CEO of a giant in the semiconductor chip industry joined Donald Trump on Monday to announce the Taiwanese company’s new $100bn investment in production in the United States.

CC Wei, the chief executive of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) announced the investment at the White House alongside the president, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and David Sacks, a Trump adviser on AI and crypto. He said the new investment brings TSMC’s total investment in chip manufacturing in the US to $165bn.

“We are producing the most advanced chip on US soil,” Wei said. “Now the vision becomes reality.”

Trump called Wei a “legend” and said the investment will create many thousands of jobs. The president claimed that bringing semiconductor manufacturing to the US is a matter of national security and would give the country a big share of the world market.

Last April, Wei had agreed to expand TSMC’s planned spending in the US by $25bn to $65bn and to add two more factories to its site in Arizona by 2030.

TSMC is the largest contract chipmaker in the world, and it first set up shop in Arizona in 2020, with production there beginning late last year. The company’s further expansion in the US would bring additional investment to semiconductor manufacturing at a time when much of the industry is consolidated in Asia.

The chips that TSMC produces are used in most all parts of the tech sector – from smartphones and car consoles to the servers used to power artificial intelligence.

Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was “an excellent down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he has declined to commit grants that have already been approved by the department, and said he wanted to “read them and analyze them and understand them”.

On Monday, Lutnick repeatedly thanked Trump for bringing more chip production to the US. “Now you’re seeing the power of Donald Trump’s presidency,” he said.

The US commerce department under then president Joe Biden finalized a $6.6bn government subsidy in November for TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Arizona.

Biden signed the Chips and Science Act legislation in 2022 to provide $52.7bn in subsidies for American semiconductor production and research to boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia.

A TSMC spokesperson said last month the company had received $1.5bn in Chips Act money before the new administration came in as per the milestone terms of its agreement.

TSMC last year agreed to produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona plant expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona. The TSMC award included up to $5bn in low-cost government loans.

While campaigning for president, Trump criticized the Chips Act and said that tariffs would be a better avenue to bring foreign manufacturing to the US.

On Monday, Trump said that because TSMC is building in the US, it will not be obligated to pay the tariffs the president has promised. He added that tariffs on Canada and Mexico will begin on 2 April and if businesses based in those countries don’t want to pay tariffs, they should build in the US.

“That’s what Mr Wei is doing,” Trump said. “He’s way ahead of the game.”