Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is in talks to build a US$9 billion chip plant in Zhuhai, Guangdon Province, China, Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review reported on Friday.
Hon Hai, a major iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, plans to start the construction as early as 2020, with most of the investment expected to be subsidized by the Zhuhai city government, the report said, quoting people familiar with the matter.
The Taiwanese company is expected to join in the venture with the city government and its subsidiary, Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp, it added.
The plant would produce chipsets for ultra-high-definition 8K TVs and camera image sensors, as well as sensor chips for connected devices and industrial use, hoping eventually to produce advanced chips for robotics and autonomous vehicles, the report said.
The project comes as the US and China remain locked in a trade spat and as Hon Hai seeks to reduce its dependence on Apple.
It would be Hon Hai’s largest outlay since investing US$10 billion to set up a manufacturing plant in Racine County, Wisconsin, that produces advanced flat panels and focuses on the development of applications for artificial intelligence, 8K displays and 5G technology.
GROWING OWINGS: While Luxembourg and China swapped the top three spots, the US continued to be the largest exposure for Taiwan for the 41st consecutive quarter The US remained the largest debtor nation to Taiwan’s banking sector for the 41st consecutive quarter at the end of September, after local banks’ exposure to the US market rose more than 2 percent from three months earlier, the central bank said. Exposure to the US increased to US$198.896 billion, up US$4.026 billion, or 2.07 percent, from US$194.87 billion in the previous quarter, data released by the central bank showed on Friday. Of the increase, about US$1.4 billion came from banks’ investments in securitized products and interbank loans in the US, while another US$2.6 billion stemmed from trust assets, including mutual funds,
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