President Joe Biden visited the construction site of TSMC’s first fabrication facility in Arizona on Tuesday in his push to boost domestic chip manufacturing.
In his speech to an audience that included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, the president said that the U.S. is down to producing only 10% of the world’s chips, despite once being a global leader in research and design.
“Over 30 years ago, America had more than 30% of the global chip production,” Biden said. “Then something happened. American manufacturing, the backbone of our economy, began to get hollowed out. Companies moved jobs overseas.”
Since early 2021, the president has moved to identify risks across supply chains and encourage a revitalization of the manufacturing sector. In August, Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which is expected to strengthen domestic manufacturing and pour new money into research, development, science, and technology. He later signed an executive order to begin the implementation of the new law.
The federal support has pushed more companies to expand their chip manufacturing in the U.S. Micron announced in October that it intends to invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years to construct a new mega fab facility in Clay, New York. In January, Intel announced it’s investing $20 billion to build two factories in Ohio.
TSMC announced on Tuesday it began construction on its second fab facility in Arizona, which is set to start production of its 3nm process technology in 2026. The company, a major Apple supplier, said the investment for both Arizona fabs would be approximately $40 billion.
“These investments are helping us build and strengthen the supply chain here in America,” Biden said in his remarks. “Some of the companies here today are customers that are going to buy these chips made here. Some are suppliers that are going to help make these chips. And they all depend on a strong supply chain. That’s why we’re doing — what we’re doing here in Arizona matters across the country and around the world.”
