Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, received NT$47.55 billion (US$1.51 billion) in subsidies from China and Japan last year for investing in those countries, company data showed.
The subsidies were sharply higher than in 2022, when they totaled about NT$7.5 billion, reflecting that many countries covet TSMC’s technology and are eager to attract the firm.
The subsidies last year were handed out to support the expansion or building of new facilities in Nanjing, China, and Kumamoto, Japan. They were also used to finance land and equipment purchases, and to fund day-to-day operations.
Photo: Kyodo News via AP
TSMC opened a plant in Kumamoto on Feb. 24 through its joint venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM). The firm is planning to build a second fab in Kumamoto, with construction slated to begin at the end of next year and mass production scheduled to begin at the end of 2027.
The firm is to invest more than US$20 billion in the projects in Japan, TSMC said, adding that it has received strong support from the Japanese government.
On Feb. 24, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ken Saito said that the Japanese government would grant ￥732 billion (US$4.98 billion) to JASM to build the second fab in Kumamoto.
Along with a subsidy of ￥476 billion for the first fab in Kumamoto, the Japanese government’s total grants to TSMC would top ￥1.2 trillion.
Elsewhere, TSMC is investing US$40 billion to build two advanced wafer plants in Arizona.
A report from Bloomberg on Friday cited sources as saying that TSMC is set to secure more than US$5 billion in federal grants to support its investments in Arizona, much lower than the subsidies planned by Japan.
The report said the grants have not been finalized, and it was still unclear whether the Taiwanese chipmaker would tap into the loans and guarantees on offer from the CHIPS and Science Act that US President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022.
TSMC did not comment on the report.
Several chipmakers, including TSMC, Intel Corp, Samsung Electronics Co and Micron Technology Inc, are in discussions with the US government for about US$28 billion in subsidies for sophisticated facility investments through the CHIPS Act, Bloomberg reported.
US officials were aiming to announce grants to major chipmakers by the end of this month, the report said.
The US government has so far unveiled three grants to companies that roll out older generation semiconductors.
TSMC is also planning to build a wafer fab in Germany. Recent reports said TSMC could receive up to 5 billion euros (US$5.47 billion) in grants from the German government for the new plant, almost half of the total investment.
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
FORECAST: The greater computing power needed for emerging AI applications has driven higher demand for advanced semiconductors worldwide, TSMC said The government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has raised its forecast for this year’s growth in the output value of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to above 22 percent on strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. In its latest IEK Current Quarterly Model report, the institute said the local semiconductor industry would have output of NT$6.5 trillion (US$216.6 billion) this year, up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, an upward revision from a 19.1 percent increase estimate made in May. The strong showing of the local semiconductor industry largely reflected the stronger-than-expected performance of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing segment,
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component
RSS