TSMC mulls multibillion-dollar Texas campus for more AI chips
It’s also had conversations with Singaporean officials regarding the city-state as potential site, sources say
Published Thu, Oct 1, 2026 · 07:10 PM
TAIWAN Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is weighing a new campus in Texas that would add tens of billions of dollars in new investment to the company’s multiyear expansion into chipmaking in the US.
The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia and Apple is looking into further overseas facilities to help handle unrelenting demand for artificial intelligence hardware, according to people familiar with its plans. TSMC has already committed to spending US$265 billion at an expansive site in Arizona, where it is developing several fabrication plants, and the envisioned Texas investment would also involve multiple fabs, one of the people said.
Business from North America accounts for more than 75 per cent of the chipmaker’s wafer revenue so far this year, and AI silicon designers such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices bring in huge orders for some of its most advanced technology. The AI boom has strained TSMC’s existing capacity and the company has had to roughly double its planned equipment purchases over the past year in order to keep up with demand, deputy co-chief operating officer Cliff Hou said last month.
If TSMC ultimately decides to invest in Texas, the project would encompass multiple chipmaking plants, each of which would cost at least US$20 billion, according to one of the people. The plans remain at an early stage, the people cautioned, asking not to be identified as the details are not public.
The potential Texas investment is contingent on US legislators extending an advanced-manufacturing tax credit that is set to expire at the end of this year, one of the people said. That tax credit was a cornerstone of former president Joe Biden’s 2022 Chips Act, and it was increased to 35 per cent and extended last year. While an extension has yet to find a viable path to passage this year, Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, and Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, have said they are committed to it.
Texas already has a significant semiconductor foundation, including an extensive chip production complex that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has established. Elon Musk is also developing his Terafab project, which will supply chips for his massive business empire, in the Lone Star state.
TSMC executives including CEO CC Wei have consistently said their international expansion will be in service of customer demand and dependent on cooperation and support from local governments. Beside its Arizona campus, Taiwan’s most valuable company is also building plants in Japan’s Kumamoto, in partnership with Sony Group, as well as a nascent project in Saxony, Germany.
Taiwan’s Economic Daily News first reported TSMC’s consideration of Texas for expansion earlier this week.
Texas is not, however, the only potential site that TSMC has recently looked at. The chipmaker has also had conversations with Singaporean officials, who are aggressively seeking semiconductor investments, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Singapore already hosts several chipmaking factories as well as the Asia-Pacific hubs for some of the world’s biggest AI developers, such as Meta Platforms The city-state has seen AI stoke growth, and it wants to play a growing role in the value chain for the technology.
TSMC’s recent communications with Singapore have not been previously reported.
“We have no comment on market rumors,” TSMC said in a text message. The Singapore Economic Development Board declined to comment.
Asia’s most valuable company for most of its history has built its chip plants in Taiwan and reaped the benefits of that concentration in production partly because it made management and labour simple and efficient. Growing US national security concern, Covid and then the AI boom gradually led to this broadened global push.
Any expansion of TSMC’s international operations is unlikely to affect TSMC’s longstanding policy of developing the most advanced chipmaking technology at home. Taiwanese officials have on several occasions reiterated that TSMC will keep its cutting-edge research and development at home, and the company’s executives have also said that is the most efficient way to advance its technology. BLOOMBERG
