Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TMSC) is the first CHIPS Act awardee to receive a portion of the government’s promised money. The Biden administration has finalized its grants for TSMC, which expects to receive $6.6 billion in grants as part of its deal to boost U.S. semiconductor production. TSMC will also provide another $5 billion in government loans to finance a planned $65 billion three-plant expansion in Arizona. according to Bloomberg, it gets at least $1 billion of the total by the end of the year because it already meets a set of requirements.
A Canadian research firm discovered this in October Huawei used TSMC chips For AI accelerators, even if it violates US government sanctions. TSMC has denied any business relationship with Huawei and this stopped shipping to the customer it may have illegally shipped its chips to Huawei. He also decided stop manufacturing advanced AI chips For its Chinese clients, it reportedly wanted to demonstrate to the US government that it was “not acting against US interests”.
“Today’s final agreement with TSMC, the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer, will spur $65 billion in private investment to build three state-of-the-art facilities in Arizona and create tens of thousands of jobs by the end of the decade. … The first of TSMC’s three facilities will be fully operational early next year,” President Joe Biden said in the statement.
Other companies, e.g Intel and Samsungthey are still waiting to receive their grant. Business groups are reportedly calling on the administration to finalize deals on the CHIPS Act before Biden leaves office. While they aren’t worried about the new administration killing the CHIPS Act, which had bipartisan support, they seem to want to avoid the possibility of renegotiating with the government.
