By Wen-Yee Lee
Jan 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. and Taiwan reached a trade deal on Thursday under which Taiwanese companies will invest $250 billion to boost production of semiconductors, energy and artificial intelligence in the United States.
The agreement includes $100 billion already committed by semiconductor giant TSMC in 2025, with more to come, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, hinted at plans to build more manufacturing capacity in the U.S.
during its January 15 earnings call, but did not elaborate on any additional investment beyond the $165 billion it has already committed.
Following are details of TSMC’s U.S. investments:
* January 2026: TSMC says it has completed the purchase of a second parcel of land in the U.S. state of Arizona to support its expansion plan and give it more flexibility to respond to strong AI-related demand. The plan would enable TSMC to scale up an independent gigafab cluster in Arizona.
* March 2025: TSMC says it will expand its U.S. investment to a total of $165 billion, including three additional fabs, two advanced packaging facilities and an R&D centre.
* April 2024: The Taiwan contract chipmaker announces plans for a third fab in Arizona, lifting total investment beyond $65 billion.
* December 2022: TSMC says it will add a second fab at its Arizona site, raising total planned investment to $40 billion.
* May 2020: TSMC announces an initial investment of $12 billion as part of plans to build its first advanced semiconductor fabrication plant in Arizona.
MANUFACTURING IN ARIZONA:
* First fab: The facility is up and running, with volumeproduction starting in the fourth quarter of 2024, using4-nanometre technology. * Second fab: Construction of the second fab completed, withtool move-in and installation planned for 2026. The fab willutilize 3-nanometre process technology, with volume productionexpected in the second half of 2027. * Third fab: Groundbreaking took place in April 2025, withthe facility set to produce 2-nanometre and more advancedprocess technologies and volume production targeted by the endof the decade. * Fourth, fifth and sixth fabs, two advanced packagingfacilities and one R&D centre: TSMC is in the process ofapplying for permits to begin construction of its fourth fab andfirst advanced packaging plant. No other timeline has beenprovided.CUSTOMERS:
Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm are customers of TSMC’s Arizona fabs. In April 2025, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple is TSMC Arizona’s first and largest customer. In October 2025, TSMC Arizona began volume production of Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs using its advanced N4P process.
(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
