(Bloomberg) — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is weighing a new campus in Texas that would add tens of billions of dollars in new investment to the company's multiyear expansion into chipmaking in the US.
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The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. is looking into further overseas facilities to help handle unrelenting demand for artificial intelligence hardware, according to people familiar with its plans. TSMC has already committed to spending $265 billion at an expansive site in Arizona, where it's developing several fabrication plants, and the envisioned Texas investment would also involve multiple fabs, one of the people said.
Business from North America accounts for more than 75% of the chipmaker's wafer revenue so far this year, and AI silicon designers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. bring in huge orders for some of its most advanced technology. The AI boom has strained TSMC's existing capacity and the company's had to roughly double its planned equipment purchases over the past year in order to keep up with demand, Deputy Co-Chief Operating Officer Cliff Hou said last month.
If TSMC ultimately decides to invest in Texas, the project would encompass multiple chipmaking plants, each of which would cost at least $20 billion, according to one of the people. The plans remain at an early stage, the people cautioned, asking not to be identified as the details aren't public.
The potential Texas investment is contingent on US legislators extending an advanced-manufacturing tax credit that is set to expire at the end of this year, one of the people said. That tax credit was a cornerstone of former president Joe Biden's 2022 Chips Act, and it was increased to 35% and extended last year. While an extension has yet to find a viable path to passage this year, Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have said they are committed to it.
Texas already has a significant semiconductor foundation, including an extensive chip production complex that South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. has established. Elon Musk is also developing his Terafab project, which will supply chips for his massive business empire, in the Lone Star state.
Source: Tech
