It is the latest effort by Trump to persuade companies to make big investments in the U.S.
By Yang Jie, Meridith McGraw and Asa FitchUpdated March 3, 2025 10:22 am ET
Nvidia’s AI chips are crucial to technology from smartphones to chatbots. Their production is outsourced to just one company in Taiwan. With growing fears that China may stage an invasion of the island, the U.S. is racing to secure the supply chain. Illustration: Zak Ross
WASHINGTON—Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. intends to invest $100 billion in chip-manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years under a plan expected to be announced later Monday by President Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
The investment would be used to build out cutting-edge chip-making facilities. Such an expansion would advance a long-pursued U.S. goal to regrow the domestic semiconductor industry after manufacturing fled largely to Asian countries in recent decades.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, set down roots in Arizona in 2020, when it said it would build a chip factory there for $12 billion. Its ambitions for the site have expanded rapidly since, with two more factories on the same site and a total investment of $65 billion. The company’s first factory began mass production late last year.
TSMC’s announcement comes after years of deliberation regarding the future of semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. and the global tech sector. The company currently builds its most advanced chip-making facilities only on its home soil Taiwan. The chips it produces are critical for powering everything from the latest artificial-intelligence systems to smartphones.
Since the Biden administration, the U.S. has expressed concerns about TSMC’s near-monopoly on advanced chip manufacturing and has been urging the company to relocate more of its cutting-edge production, including advanced chip-packaging facilities, to the U.S. Advanced chip packaging is particularly critical for AI-related chips, as it enhances performance by integrating multiple semiconductor components, reducing size, improving power efficiency, and ensuring faster data transfer—key factors for AI applications.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip maker. Photo: i-hwa cheng/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The U.S. has supported TSMC’s growth through 2022’s Chips Act, which earmarked tens of billions of dollars in grants to domestic chip manufacturing. TSMC was awarded up to $6.6 billion of grants, and has recently begun to receive federal money from the program. Generous tax credits have also boosted chip-making projects in the U.S.
“We’re pleased to have an opportunity to meet with the President and look forward to discussing our shared vision for innovation and growth in the semiconductor industry, as well as exploring ways to bolster the technology sector along with our customers,” TSMC said in a statement.
U.S. officials see chip-making as a national-security imperative because economies, technological advancement and military might all are increasingly dependent on who has the best chips. Covid-era supply-chain issues also highlighted the critical nature of the industry when shortages of chips led to slowdowns in auto sales, among other disruptions.
Trump has repeatedly called for more chip manufacturing in the U. S.—although he criticized the Chips Act on the campaign trail and argued the better way to attract manufacturing was through tariffs. Last month, he said he was considering a 25% or more tariff on semiconductor imports.
“We have to have chips made in this country. Right now, everything is made in Taiwan, practically, almost all of it, a little bit in South Korea, but everything—almost all of it is made in Taiwan. And we want it to be made—we want those companies to come to our country, in all due respect,” Trump said in February.
Since taking office, Trump has appeared at the White House with the chief executives of several companies to announce pledges to invest in the U.S. The details of the projects are often vague and it is often unclear whether the pledges represent new investments by the companies.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman, database company Oracle and investment giant SoftBank Group pledged to invest as much as $500 billion into building artificial-intelligence infrastructure in the U.S., though Trump adviser Elon Musk has questioned whether the project would come to fruition.
Last week, Apple said it plans to spend more than $500 billion over the next four years to expand its manufacturing footprint in the U.S.
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