TSMC is going to invest an additional $100 billion in the US to build at least four more factories and several advanced packaging plants in Arizona. It CC Wei announcedthe president and CEO of this company, during the second quarter results conference held in Taipei (Taiwan). The new facilities they will produce chips at the 2nm node and later generationsand confirm a rumor that was already circulating in February.
TSMC’s total commitment in the US now amounts to $265 billion. However, the company has not offered a specific construction schedule. And, according to Wei, the pace of the works will depend directly on the evolution of market demand, not on a commitment with a date fixed in advance.
The announcement also comes accompanied by another historic quarter for TSMC, with a net profit of $22.35 billion between April and June (77.4% more year-on-year), its fifth consecutive quarterly record.
The figures and background of this bet
Equipping and building a state-of-the-art 2nm semiconductor fab with capacity for about 20,000 wafers per month costs between $25 billion and $35 billion. With this reference, the 100,000 million announced fit with the four minimum plants that Wei mentioned. The most revealing data, however, is provided by Bloomberg: The expansion would bring TSMC’s US footprint to 10 factories and two advanced packaging plants, about half of the final 12-factory plan announced in April.
TSMC’s revenue has grown by 36% between April and June and its gross margin has reached 67.7%, also a record figure
This scenario invites us to stop at the packaging, probably the most relevant part of the ad. CoWoS capability, and not wafer production itself, remains the real bottleneck for manufacturing accelerators for artificial intelligence (AI). Count on advanced packaging in Arizona would give TSMC’s American customers, for the first time, a complete supply chain within the country, from wafer processing to the packaged and ready-to-assemble chip.
TSMC’s revenue has grown 36% between April and June and its gross margin has reached 67.7%, also a record figure. This company now forecasts revenue of between $44.6 billion and $45.8 billion for the third quarter, and has raised its annual growth forecast to slightly above 40%. Another note: the capex of 2026 will rise to between 60,000 and 64,000 million dollars, compared to the 52,000 and 56,000 million dollars initially budgeted.
Be that as it may, this announcement cannot be separated from the trade agreement between the US and Taiwan, which reduced tariffs on Taiwanese products to 15% in exchange for 250 billion dollars in Taiwanese investment in the US. As can be expected, the execution of the plan in Phoenix will continue to be conditioned by the availability of labor, water and visas, three of the great challenges that TSMC is facing in Arizona.
Image | TSMC
More information | Reuters | Bloomberg
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