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18,000 reasons it’s so hard to build a chip factory in America
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Mr Jensen Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia, signing autographs for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company workers after speaking at the company's plant in Phoenix, Arizona, on Oct 17.
PHOTO: LOREN ELLIOTT/NYTIMES
Peter S. Goodman
- TSMC's US$165 billion investment in Phoenix chip factories highlights US efforts to achieve industrial self-sufficiency amid geopolitical risks.
- Despite US ambitions, the project relies heavily on Taiwanese expertise and faces challenges including bureaucracy, skill shortages and high costs.
- Community resistance, exemplified by opposition to an Amkor plant, reflects broader constraints on US manufacturing aspirations and regulatory hurdles.
AI generated
PHOENIX, Arizona – The computer chip factories rising from an empty expanse of the Sonoran Desert test the concept of immensity. The complex is under construction across 465ha, an area larger than New York’s Central Park. It represents an investment of US$165 billion (S$214 billion), making it one of the most expensive undertakings on earth.
Here on the northern edges of Phoenix stands a display of the US’ reach for industrial self-sufficiency. The factories are engineered to make advanced computer chips – the brains of modern manufacturing. Those chips will power data centres that deliver artificial intelligence.
