President Biden on Tuesday was set to visit the Arizona plant of TSMC, a Taiwan-based chipmaker that has more than tripled its planned investment in the U.S. state to some $40 billion.
It’s among the largest foreign business investments in U.S. history and a big win for Biden after pandemic-aggravated supply chain issues disrupted the economy in the early days of his Presidency.
The White House said Apple CEO Tim Cook would be joining Biden on his visit to TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, in Phoenix. Other executives who will attend the President’s visit include TSMC founder Morris Chang and the heads of two other computer companies—Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang.
During the event executives for TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to manufacturers such as Apple and NVIDIA, are expected to announce plans to build a second nearby plant that will make advanced chips by 2026, bringing the company’s total investment in Arizona to $40 billion.
In July Congress passed the “Chips and Science Act,” legislation that was aimed at addressing a semiconductor chip shortage and making the U.S. less reliant on other countries like China for manufacturing and offsetting future supply-chain issues.
