Business has hardly ever been this political for technology companies. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is pouring $100bn into new fabrication plants, or fabs, over the next three years. In doing so, the world’s largest contract chipmaker is carefully balancing the demands on that capacity from the geopolitical rivals that are driving its growth: the US and China.
The glaring example of an attempt to manage this balance gone badly wrong is Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. Four years after it pledged to build a huge liquid crystal display panel factory in Wisconsin, it is still dealing with the fallout of failing to follow through.
Both Taiwanese tech giants are up against political pressures emanating from the US-China strategic competition. In TSMC’s case, Washington pushed for more chip manufacturing to happen in the US, at the very least for input into the defence-related supply chain. The message was clear enough to convince TSMC to build a $12bnplant in Arizona.