In the United States, TSMC currently operates a fab in Camas, Washington and design centers in both Austin, Texas and San Jose, California. The Arizona facility would be TSMC’s second manufacturing site in the United States.

TSMC is a massive contract manufacturer for numerous fabless chip makers. It builds AMD’s GPUs, Apple’s A13 processor for the latest iPhones and iPads, the Qualcomm processors used in Android devices and the chips used in both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. Even companies with their own fab plants like Intel and Texas Instruments outsource some production to TSMC.

The company is well ahead of other manufacturers including Intel, having commenced risk production for 5-nanometer manufacturing technology. It will reportedly use that process to build Apple’s next-gen A14 chip, which should increase performance but also increase costs, according to Wccftech. Intel, meanwhile, has only just moved on to 10-nanometer manufacturing and still isn’t building its high-performance 10th-generation chips using the tech. (The only company currently matching TSMC’s tech is Samsung, which focuses more on memory production.)

The White House has has also reportedly been trying to convince Intel to build its upcoming chip fab plants stateside. According to the WSJ and NYT reports, the US Defense, Commerce and other departments are concerned about outsourcing chip supplies to other countries, especially China. Experts believe the US needs to invest a lot more in the sector, much as Taiwan, China, Israel and other nations have done.

TSMC addressed that issue in its press release, implying that the government needs to step up. “US adoption of forward-looking investment policies to enable a globally competitive environment for a leading edge semiconductor technology operation in the US will be crucial to the success of this project,” the company wrote. “It will also give us the confidence this and other future investments by TSMC and its supply chain companies will be successful.” Construction will commence in 2021, with production targeted to start in 2024.

Foxconn’s dubious Wisconsin factory — the subject of billions of dollars of tax subsidy scrutiny — will be used to produce ventilators to aid in treatment for COVID-19 around the US. The company, best known for assembling Apple’s iPhones at factories in China, has entered into a partnership with healthcare firm Medtronic for the project, which will see ventilators produced “as soon as possible,” according to a statement provided to Reuters.

The factory — dubbed the “eighth wonder of the world” by President Trump — was first announced back in 2017 and has been the focus of controversy ever since. While its arrival promised new job opportunities for the state, many homes would subsequently be bulldozed to make space for the plant. It was initially earmarked for use as an LCD factory, but plans have repeatedly changed and the ample job opportunities never materialized. For the few that did, pay and working conditions was were way below those originally touted by Foxconn. Meanwhile, the plant was in receipt of more than $4.5 billion in government incentives. The whole endeavour has certainly fallen short of its promises.

Production at the factory, a joint venture with SAIC, is expected to start in October 2020, and it will have an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles. FAW-Volkswagen plans to manufacture another 300,000 ID. model vehicles in Foshan, China.

Volkswageg expects to sell 22 million all-electric cars worldwide by 2028, and more than half of those sales are expected to be in China. “The country plays a crucial part in our electrification strategy, which will pave the way to Volkswagen’s goal of becoming net carbon-neutral by 2050,” said Dr. Herbert Diess, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG.