Sharjah24 - AFP: At the site of a massive expansion to a Taiwanese-owned semiconductor facility on Tuesday, President Joe Biden proclaimed the return of US manufacturing, ending the country's dangerous reliance on overseas suppliers of the crucial component.
"American manufacturing is back, folks. American manufacturing is back," Biden said at the plant in Phoenix, Arizona, accompanied by senior political allies and titans of the corporate world, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.
The project by TSMC, the world's biggest maker of leading-edge chips, would go a long way to meeting the US goal of ending reliance on foreign-located factories -- particularly in Taiwan, which is under constant threat of being absorbed or even invaded by China.
TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, announced it is building a second Phoenix plant by 2026, ballooning its investment in Arizona from $12 billion to $40 billion, with a target of producing some 600,000 microchips a year.
About 10,000 high-tech jobs will be created once both plants are working, the company said.
White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said the "major milestone" is one of the largest foreign direct investments in US history, while TSMC chairman Mark Liu heralded "a giant step forward to help build a vibrant semiconductor ecosystem in the United States."
Biden clearly hoped to get political credit for the investment influx, pointing to the effect of his signature CHIPS Act, which sets aside almost $53 billion for subsidies and research in the semiconductors sector.
It's a message he'll want to spread in Arizona, which was long a Republican-dominated state but has turned into a battleground where the president's Democrats do increasingly well.
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