As chip-making business returns to US, Washington – and Arizona – dangle subsidies in race against China

Rising in the desert near Phoenix is a US$12bil semiconductor factory owned by Taiwan’s TSMC, with the company lured by US funding and tax credits. The industry is playing on a ‘much more global chessboard’ thanks to growing US-China tensions and national security efforts to safeguard chip supplies. — SCMP

On a dusty patch of desert north of Phoenix, Arizona, three security guards in hard hats sit under an open tent in the blistering sun as a coyote lopes across the dirt road.

“I can’t say anything. You’re not allowed in here,” barks one, ambling out of the shade, as scores of construction cranes, cement trucks and diggers nearby race to build a US$12bil (RM53.40bil) semiconductor manufacturing fabrication line, or fab, for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading chip producer.