TSMC Wins $6.6 Billion US Subsidy for Arizona Chip Production (reuters.com) 85
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Monday it would award Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's unit a $6.6 billion subsidy for advanced semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona and up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans. From a report: TSMC agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030, Commerce said in announcing the preliminary award. The Taiwanese company will produce the world's most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab expected to begin production in 2028, the department said.
"These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy, but frankly, a 21st century military and national security apparatus," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia had previously announced plans to invest $40 billion in Arizona. TSMC expects to begin high-volume production in its first U.S. fab there by the first half of 2025, Commerce said. The $65 billion-plus investment by TSMC is the largest foreign direct investment in a completely new project in U.S. history, the department said.
"These are the chips that underpin all artificial intelligence, and they are the chips that are necessary components for the technologies that we need to underpin our economy, but frankly, a 21st century military and national security apparatus," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a statement. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia had previously announced plans to invest $40 billion in Arizona. TSMC expects to begin high-volume production in its first U.S. fab there by the first half of 2025, Commerce said. The $65 billion-plus investment by TSMC is the largest foreign direct investment in a completely new project in U.S. history, the department said.
How long... (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's not really me, this was a story in Taiwanese tech media some time ago. The building process basically was "Taiwanese director level leaders go to Arizona and try to hire locals to build the fab. Local DEI bureaucracy slams in them in the face with DEI hiring quotas in the funding agreements. Taiwanese directors try to hire DEI people. Get absolute net negative garbage that don't just not benefit project, but actively harm it through their opinionated incompetence. Directors go to DEI bureaucracy and de
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
> it's a convenient combination of racism and misogyny, letting them hate on both brown/black people and women at the same time.
DEI is not affirmative action, but it looks the same.
Modern Globalism is taking a sub-standard workforce and expecting it to turn out the same as your domestic workforce. Hint: It doesn't.
As a corporation, the most talented of a foreign workforce, end up naturalizing domestically and you're back where you started.
Projecting that this is about
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The "DEI" people are the specific people who work for the government that write the hiring requirements that are necessary in order to receive funding.
If you didn't know this you might be living under a rock, or are disingenuous. Disingenuous people support diversity requirements for funding but simultaneously pretend to not know it exists.
Here's an example of the same happening in Canada: The requirement for federal departments and agencies ensures a minimum 5% of the total value of contracts are held by I [sac-isc.gc.ca]
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Or living (shock, horror) outside of the US. I had to look the acronym up, but looking it up was not exactly difficult.
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DEI people are people hired based on their standing in the oppression/oppressed hierarchy and intersectionality, rather than based strictly on competence.
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"DEI people" = anyone who not a male Caucasian. Using the term DEI is all the rage these days in Fox Land.
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If you're expecting a study with citations, you appear to have taken a wrong turn. The correct address is scholar.google.com. This is a discussion board for nerd things.
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I can't imagine it being anything local as the local governments in Arizona tend to be pretty pragmatic, with few exceptions. Particularly given Arizona pretty much does nothing beyond what the federal government already does in this area. Generally not much bureaucracy either, except in the usual places like the courts, the MVD, etc. That's as opposed to say California, who keeps everything they can on as tight a leash as they can unless the voters specifically vote against it, and overall they're even wor
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As I understood it, problem is that the subsidies for the factory are a mix of Federal and State, and both were written by the bureaucracies where DEI write ins are now basically a template.
And Taiwanese had no idea what "hiring Didn't Earn It" crowd means. They assumed that if you hire someone who has credentials from a US university, it's like having credentials in most of the East Asia (minus mainland Red Princes, but they don't go for hard work in the first place, so not relevant). That you actually had
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If you want to see how racism still exists, read https://www.nber.org/papers/w3... [nber.org]. The results of that paper were reported in the NYTimes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0... [nytimes.com].
To summarize: "On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants."
Now go back into your little racist molehill and continue to try to build that into a mountain, the former alleged president is proud of you.
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"I'm not going to talk about what you talked about. Instead I'm going to cite a study by DEI priesthood, which is in a completely different field, with completely different hiring principles, completely different credentials, at completely different terms and at a completely different location. And based on that fallacy, I'm going to call you a racist".
2010s called. They want their red herring diversion tactics back.
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If you want to see how racism still exists, read https://www.nber.org/papers/w3... [nber.org]The results of that paper were reported in the NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0... [nytimes.com]. To summarize: "On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants."
Only 9.5% less???
I'm surprised that the difference is so small.
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Perhaps one group submitted better resumes/applications? Or are we still playing the "oh every applicant, black or white, had exactly the same resume, same education, same work experience!" Game?
Women are paid less than men (72 cents to the dollar) ONLY when you add up every woman's salary and add up every man's salary, irregardless of education, experience, qualifications, etc. actually paying women less than men has been illegal for DECADES, the only pay issue is when you make this stunningly stupid compa
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Perhaps one group submitted better resumes/applications?
Not in this case.
The experiment was, identical resumes were sent, some with black applicants, some white, and they recorded the propabilities that the resume got a response asking to set up an interview.
Or are we still playing the "oh every applicant, black or white, had exactly the same resume, same education, same work experience!"
In this case, yes, that is correct.
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The reality is that corporations don't have trouble finding employees, they have trouble finding employees willing to work for lower wage & benefits for a given job. Driven only by profit motive and short sighted business models they blame workers instead of investing in the long term through well developed trai
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>There are ample brilliant, well educated and ambitious americans who can be trained to do these kind of jobs.
Absolutely. But there aren't any among the DEI people. Those are the people that by definition Didn't Earn It.
Re:How long... (Score:5, Interesting)
I dunno, maybe they can import workers from around their region?
Re:How long... (Score:4, Interesting)
They'll suck up the subsidies for all they're worth, inflate their stock price a bit, and then once the publicity has died down abandon the vast majority of the project. For a recent model just look at the Foxconn "project" in Wisconsin.
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They'll suck up the subsidies for all they're worth, inflate their stock price a bit, and then once the publicity has died down abandon the vast majority of the project. For a recent model just look at the Foxconn "project" in Wisconsin.
This is pretty much what I'm expecting from all the chip fab hand-outs going on right now with the US government shoveling money at tech companies as fast as they can. in order to spin up fabs in country. They'll never actually be built, and even if they get a building up, they'll never be brought to full operation. This is money that will literally just disappear into corporate coffers and eventually end up in executive bonuses. Why we tolerate it, again and again, and again, is beyond me, but our governme
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Unfortunately most people have the memory of goldfish, so they get to carry out these scams over and over. Just like every other year there's an "expose" that the gov't is buying location and browsing data from the telecoms that they're otherwise prohibited from collecting, going back at least until 2003. They will do it again the next election cycle, and the thundering herds will be convinced that this is something new again.
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Payments are made when milestones are met.
Your Wisconsin Foxconn example:
The tax credits went down from $2.85 billion to $80 million.
The job goal number is also down from 13,000 statewide to 1,454.
The capital investment has also gone down from $10 billion to $672.8 million.
But the tax credits are still performance based. In order for Foxconn to receive tax credits it must meet certain hiring and capital investment measures.
Link: https://www.jsonline.com/story... [jsonline.com]
But what we're talking about here is the US taxpayer HANDING TSMC $6 billion free and clear, once they build the facility.
Intel planned on a $100 BN buildout of chip fans, then Biden admin gave them $10 BN, they decided to increase their project to, you guessed it, $100 BN. The only thing that happened is Intel gets free money to do what they were already going to do.
Chip Fabs are the easiest proj
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I've heard horror stories from guys sent to 'those' states trying to set up factories where the labour is so cheap. The problem is, that same labour is also uneducated and unmotivated, because there is always another factory looking for cheap labour.
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I've heard horror stories from guys sent to 'those' states trying to set up factories where the labour is so cheap.
Not sure what you mean by "'those' states. Phoenix is pretty much a high-tech hub.
The problem is, that same labour is also uneducated and unmotivated, because there is always another factory looking for cheap labour.
You seem to be confusing Phoenix with Missisippi. They're at similar latitudes, so I guess they're easy to confuse. Hint: Arizona is hot and dry, Missisippi is hot and wet.
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...until they figure out that you also need skilled employees to operate the plant. I'm wondering if they can pull that one off.
There's a reason the tech industry in this country runs on H1-B work visas. It's difficult to find qualified candidates when their mathematics education came from an American public school.
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...until they figure out that you also need skilled employees to operate the plant.
Phoenix is the old Motorola research and manufacturing facility, not to mention Arizona State. There should be lot of semiconductor expertise there.
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...until they figure out that you also need skilled employees to operate the plant. I'm wondering if they can pull that one off.
If you would have used the subject line appropriately, the quote would have looked better...
But to address your fractured thought process, they will just get H1B visas for people who went to quality schools. There is no need for Americans anymore. We, Americans, have been thoroughly sold out. I wonder what country the leadership will move to after America collapses from their shenanigans?
2nm? (Score:2)
2 nanometer? Dang!
Someone please help me with this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Someone please help me with this. (Score:5, Informative)
Because it's not an issue? Intel say they will be recycling basically 100% of the water they use at their Arizona sites by the end of the decade, there's no reason TSMC can't do the same.
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" Intel say they will be recycling basically 100% of the water they use at their Arizona sites by the end of the decade"
how much have they been recycling up to now?
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jack shit
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how much have they been recycling up to now?
You do have access to the world's information at your fingertips, but don't let that stop you from asking what you could easily know. From https://www.intel.com/content/... [intel.com]
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Intel say they will be recycling basically 100% of the water they use at their Arizona sites by the end of the decade
LOL, yeah, just like we will all be driving electric vehicles by the end of the decade or carbon capture will be improved by the end of the decade or ... fuck it. There are billions of "promises" that were told to us to alter our perception. I am kind of surprised there are still people buying that bullshit. But you do you. Maintain your belief in the integrity of the process. To do otherwise is to lose hope. (but we can all see the integrity is completely gone)
Re:Someone please help me with this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's just a show for the voters and stockholders. This will proceed just the same as the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin, they'll make headlines, suck up all the subsidies they can, abandon the project, and then sell off the empty factory. Mission Accomplished!
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Why is everyone wanting to build in states that are not known for major water sources building facilities that require a massive amount of water to function? I only see major news articles in the future about water usage as shortages increase even more so than they are today. What am I missing?
I'm sure someone will spill technical reasons as if any of these plans are that far along, but because these fabs will never actually produce anything. Ever. They're publicity stunts meant to show the federal government that tossing billions at various companies is going to lead to something, even though they have decades of proof that tossing money at large, for-profit businesses with nothing but a vague expectation leads precisely nowhere but executive bonuses and stock buy-backs. Buh, bye, tax-dollars. H
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Money says follow the tax breaks. The States offering tax breaks are not concerned with the needs of the plant, they are only concerned with money. Does that explain it?
Do these ever work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone know off hand of an example of these subsidy schemes ever working? All I see is "X billion given to foreign company Y for plant in US", and then a couple years later "foreign company Y is scaling back plans to open plant in US" and then a couple years later "foreign company Y no longer plans to open plant in US".
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Care to explain what a president (Biden) has to do with that?
Or what/who a Pelosi is?
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Pelosi is Nancy Pelosi.
As to blaming Biden, he was elected slightly over 3 years ago so the chances of him being responsible for something which happened "years ago" are fairly remote. Given that little detail, the chances of Nancy Pelosi being materially involved are slightly higher if TheSlashdotHunter's state is California.
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Re: Do these ever work? (Score:3)
Farming subsidies work. There are loads of farmers who can only stay operating due to subsidies.
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Are these farming subsidies given to huge foreign entities for them to build infrastructure in the US? because that was my question, not if any subsidies ever work.
Re: Do these ever work? (Score:2)
Yes. It's a big enough problem that Senator Grassley introduced legislation to put a stop to it.
https://www.grassley.senate.go... [senate.gov]
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Pretty much every chip fab is built where they get the best subsidies. They easily cost over $10 billion to build and generate a ton of business for the area, so it's pretty easy to come to a deal that works for everyone involved.
This particular fab is being built because the US is heavily reliant on chips from TSMC, and most of their fabs are currently located in China. The US really wanted local chip production in case anything bad happens in the China/Taiwan situation. China taking over Taiwan and cuttin
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To be fair, the business receiving the "subsidy" probably didn't fully realize all of the strings that are attached and how they can be manipulated. As the manipulations begins, understanding increases and they realize it is ultimately a bad deal for them... so they exit.
Everyone lies. Fully and completely. There are a few who do not lie, but their lives are infinitely more difficult because people are irrational. People can not handle the truth for some reason.
Why did Intel get WAY more? (Score:2, Interesting)
Intel got 11B in low interest loans, ONTOP of a 8.5B grant.
Lots of problems here (Score:5, Interesting)
First, we've seen foreign investment scams before like the foxconn deal. Once washington doesn't care about this anymore, we'll be back to square one. Second, we also need a packaging plant built in the US or there's no point in this plant. If they have to ship chips outside of the country to be packaged, they are just wasting shipping time. That should have been a requirement for grants. Finally, it would have made more sense to put the money into Intel from a national security perspective. What if china invades taiwan in the future and we have no chip production?
Re: Lots of problems here (Score:2)
Washington isn't doing this as a jobs program. They're doing it for national security.
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Better to reference the deal then speculate. What makes you think they can take the money and run? What makes you think the US government will waste resources if they run? I'm sure we do business with lots of foreign companies. Not all of them behave like Foxconn. (It's in their name, so I guess that's on us.)
Not if you wan
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What if china invades taiwan in the future and we have no chip production?
That was the entire reason this grant happened. We wanted chips being produced locally. Intel has historically been great, but they fell way behind TSMC a while ago and only recently started to get back on track.
You're right tho, having the finishing local would be better. I wonder if Intel would be able to handle that part of the process if it became necessary.
water? (Score:3)
Subsidies? (Score:3)
Or isn't this part of the reason we're $30 trillion in debt?
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Note, though, the two year limit to military appropriations.
Then again, this doesn't apply to *naval* expenditures.
[the Founding Fathers viewed a standing army as a threat, but not a standing navy].
The *existence* of domestic capacity can reasonably be seen as necessary to either force (and can also be reasonably argued].
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So why not for green energy? Would seem stupid to rely on only one or two forms of energy to keep the country running. Why not spread it out to several different forms of energy production so there's no single point of failure (Texas excluded)?
A steady supply of energy would definitely fall under national defense considering how much the military, and the country, relie
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https://climateandsecurity.org... [climateandsecurity.org]