The Biden administration announced a $6.6 billion grant on Monday designed to commit the world’s top chipmaker to mass-produce its next generation of microchips in Arizona.
“For the first time ever, we will be making, at scale, the most advanced semiconductor chips on the planet here in the United States,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said to reporters ahead of the announcement. “These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy, but frankly a 21st century military and national security apparatus.”
Boosted by the CHIPS and Science Act grant and additional loans and tax breaks, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company pledged to put up more than $65 billion as it constructs a third leading-edge chip factory in addition to two already underway in Phoenix. It’s the largest foreign direct investment in a new project in American history, according to Raimondo.
The preliminary CHIPS award is noteworthy for confirming that TSMC will not only build semiconductor fabrication facilities or “fabs” in the U.S., but also deploy its most advanced technology in development. It is a move that company leaders had left an open question, and bound to invite backlash back in Taiwan.
Today, that coveted tech is known as the “2 nanometer process,” and major American companies have lined up behind Apple for the even faster and tinier chips TSMC expects to debut from it next year.
