Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is to invest an additional US$569 million in Wisconsin to expand its operations in the US state and deepen its work in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the company said yesterday.
The plan, approved by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp (WEDC), would anchor the company’s growth in Racine County and is expected to create about 1,400 local jobs, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said in a statement.
Hon Hai chief product officer Jerry Hsiao (蕭才祐), also general manager of Hon Hai USA, said the company is scaling up in Wisconsin to meet customers’ large-volume needs, as demand for data-related infrastructure has continued to surge.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA
Employees in Wisconsin already account for about one-quarter of Hon Hai’s US workforce, a figure the company expects to double by 2030 as the project moves forward, he said.
If Hon Hai meets its performance targets under the new WEDC plan, the state would provide up to US$16 million in tax incentives, the company said.
This is Hon Hai’s second incentive agreement with WEDC.
Under an amended contract signed in 2021, the company is eligible for up to US$80 million in tax credits by the end of this year if it invests US$672 million and creates at least 1,454 jobs, targets Hon Hai said it is on track to achieve.
The company has spent more than US$2 billion in Wisconsin in the past few years on payroll, capital expenditure and taxes, and generated about 1,500 jobs related to server production, the statement said.
The contract signed in 2021 was an acknowledgement of the company’s failure to meet its original goals articulated in 2017 when it first committed to building capacity in Wisconsin of US$10 billion in investment and the creation of 13,000 jobs.
Originally, the company said it would produce large flat panel displays for televisions and then smaller displays for other devices, but those plans were never realized.
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