reuters.com
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It would be “impossible” to move 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor capacity to the U.S., the island’s top tariff negotiator said, pushing back against recent comments by American officials who called for a major production shift.

In an interview with Taiwanese television channel CTS that was broadcast late on Sunday, Taiwan Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun said she had made it clear to Washington that Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem, built up over decades, could not be relocated.

“I have made it very clear to the United States that this is impossible,” she said, referring to the 40% goal the U.S. has floated.

That ecosystem will continue to grow in Taiwan, Cheng said, adding that the semiconductor industry would keep investing at home.

  • Jesus_666@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    18 hours ago

    Those investments should definitely come with strings attached. But there’s a lot you need to invest into.

    • Fabs cost a shitload of money and are slow to build. If you want to be able to be independent from Taiwan in ten years you should invest a couple dozen billion bucks in fabs right now. If you want a company to invest that money for you, you need to guarantee that they’ll see a good ROI, which means you probably sign a contract to buy tons of hardware that won’t be made for another decade.
    • Fabs need a lot of land. If you want to start building ASAP you need to expedite assessments and acquire land quickly (and though eminent domain, if necessary). That ain’t cheap.
    • If you want a qualified workforce available you need to not only invest in making training available but also in making it appealing enough that they’ll start training before the jobs are even there. Advertisement like that costs money, as do stipends.
    • In fact, add research grants to the pool because you’ll want both basic research to be done in the field and skilled researchers to be available for cross-hiring by your companies.

    You’ll need to keep (some amount of) the money flowing at least until the industry can be independently competitive on the world stage. Mishandling your burgeoning industry can mean that all that investment money and a large number of jobs suddenly go up in smoke.

    Note: All of this assumes that you’ll buy your manufacturing equipment from established, potentially foreign companies like ASML and Zeiss. If you want to make that stuff domestically as well you can probably add another hundred billion bucks and a decade or two of very dedicated catch-up to the bill.