Trump and Taiwan Chipmaker Announce $100B Investment to Build Factories in U.S.

President Donald Trump and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) CEO C.C. Wei announced Monday a new $100 billion investment to build chip manufacturing factories in the U.S.

TSMC, which is the biggest semiconductor manufacturer in the world and produces computer chips for companies such as Apple (AAPL) and Intel, plans to build five chip factories in Arizona in the coming years, Reuters reported.

“We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “It’s a matter of national security for us.”

Spokespeople for TSMC and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The new funding comes in addition to TSMC’s previous agreement in April to invest $65 billion to build a chip factory in Arizona by 2030, Reuters reported. TSMC had already begun constructing three plants in the state after former President Joe Biden offered the company $6.6 billion in government subsidies.

The total $165 billion investment will “create thousands of high-paying jobs,” Wei said Monday.

Monday’s news builds on the Trump administration’s plan to expand the artificial intelligence industry in the U.S. Trump announced last month a multibillion-dollar AI project with Oracle, OpenAI and Softbank, CNBC reported.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also revealed plans last month — after meeting with Trump — to invest more than $500 billion into U.S. projects over the next four years, including a new server factory in Texas, the Associated Press reported.

Chip factories across the U.S. were widely forced to shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to problems with factory assembly lines and increased inflation, the AP reported. In 2022, Biden signed a $280 billion law, called the CHIPS and Science Act, to try to rectify the situation.

Trump had been largely critical of the law at the time, instead proposing imposing high tariffs on imported chips to boost domestic chip manufacturing production.

The president has since changed course, saying on Monday TSMC’s investment would “give us a position where we have, in this very, very important business, we would have a very big part of it in the United States.”

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.