The Investment Commission yesterday approved a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) application to invest an additional US$3.5 billion in its Arizona subsidiary to manufactured advanced chips.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker’s board of directors last month approved the funding project after TSMC started moving manufacturing equipment into the fab in December last year in preparation for the production of 4-nanometer chips next year.
TSMC said it has also commenced the second phase of facility construction in Arizona.
Photo: Reuters
The second fab is to produce semiconductors using 3-nanometer technology in 2026. Altogether, TSMC plans to spend US$40 billion on the Arizona fabs, doubling its original investment of US$20 billion.
The US became the fastest-growing overseas investment destination for local enterprises last year, enjoying an annual growth rate of 128.32 percent to US$1.09 billion from 100 projects, the commission said in a statement.
Cloud-based server maker Wiwynn Corp (緯穎科技) plans to invest US$400 million on its US marketing subsidiary Wiwynn International Corp to meet robust demand from the US market, it said.
It approved that investment plan during yesterday’s meeting.
It also approved a plan from Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler, to invest US$500 million indirectly in India to produce iPhones and smartphone components through its Foxconn Singapore Pte Ltd subsidiary.
The company was also granted approval to invest more than US$361 million indirectly in its Mexican subsidiary to make components used in electric vehicles through its Singaporean unit ECMMS Precision Singapore Pte Ltd, the commission said.
PharmaEssentia Corp (藥華醫藥) received permission to invest US$80 million in its Japanese subsidiary and US$200 million in a US subsidiary, as the company prepares to sell new drugs in the countries, it said.
The commission also approved Yunlin Holding GmbH’s plan to invest NT$29.23 billion (US$962.4 million) in offshore wind energy developer Yunneng Wind Power Co (允能), a subsidiary of Skyborn Renewable Taiwan Co (天豐新能源), to improve its financial structure.
The company is developing an offshore wind power project off Taiwan’s west coast, which is to comprise 80 wind turbine generators with a total capacity of 640 megawatts rated power.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.