Pegatron Corp (和碩), one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, is to spend US$85 million to establish a new US subsidiary to meet customer demand for made-in-US products, after its board approved the plans on Friday.
The subsidiary would add new production capacity for servers and any products that customers request be made in the US to avoid potential tariffs, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
US President Donald Trump on April 2 announced “reciprocal” tariffs for Taiwan and many other countries, which were later paused for 90 days.
Photo: Huang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
The decision, announced on Friday in a regulatory filing, is part of Pegatron’s global expansion strategy, with the subsidiary expected to become one of its production bases, said the official, who declined to be named.
The company in March told an online earnings call that it planned to build a new server manufacturing facility in the US.
That would be the company’s second server production base in addition to its facilities in Taoyuan.
Regarding the location of the US subsidiary, Pegatron is weighing factors such as electricity costs, transportation and labor before making a final decision, co-CEO Gary Cheng (鄭光志) told reporters after the company’s shareholders’ meeting earlier this month.
The site would “likely be somewhere many of our peers have already set up factories,” Cheng said, responding to a question about whether it would build in Texas.
Aside from Pegatron, several Taiwanese electronics manufacturers, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Wistron Corp (緯創), have announced plans to expand production capacity in the US to mitigate the potential impacts of tariff, with Texas emerging as the most popular location.
Inventec approved an investment of up to US$85 million in April to build a manufacturing base in Texas to support its artificial intelligence (AI) server shipments, while Wistron last month announced plans to spend up to US$50 million to acquire land and facilities in Dallas, Texas, for its high-performance computing devices.
Hon Hai has invested US$142 million in Houston, Texas, to expand its AI server capacity, it said in March.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
Japan approved ￥631.5 billion (US$3.97 billion) in additional subsidies to hasten Rapidus Corp’s entry into the high-stakes artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaking arena, ramping up support for a project widely regarded as a long shot. The capital is intended to bankroll Rapidus’ work for information technology firm Fujitsu Ltd, one of the initial customers that Tokyo hopes would get the signature endeavor off the ground. The new money raises the fees and investments that the government is injecting into the start-up to ￥2.6 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year to March next year, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
RSS