Key points
- Nvidia will seek help from partners such as TSMC
- Tech firms back Trump’s push for local manufacturing
- US government has clamped down on export of sophisticated AI chips
- Tariffs on semiconductors on the cards: Trump
ISLAMABAD: Nvidia said on Monday it is planning to build AI servers worth as much as $500 billion in the US over the next four years.
The AI chip giant will seek help from partners such as TSMC, the latest American tech firm to back the Trump administration’s push for local manufacturing.
Monday’s announcement includes production of its Blackwell AI chips at TSMC’s factory at Phoenix, Arizona and supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas by Foxconn and Wistron that are expected to ramp up in 12 to 15 months, Reuters reported.
The move aligns the AI chip giant, a majority of whose processors are made in Taiwan, with a clutch of tech firms that have pledged to bring manufacturing back to the US amid threats of steep tariffs from President Donald Trump.
“The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said in the blog post.
“American manufacturing”
“Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency,” he stated.
Nvidia plans to produce as much as half a trillion dollars worth of AI infrastructure in the United States by the end of this decade through partnerships with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor and SPIL.
“Onshoring these industries is good for the American worker, good for the American economy, and good for American national security,” the White House said in a statement.
According to AFP, the US government has clamped down on the export of sophisticated AI chips to China due to national security concerns, and keeping production close to home could allow for tighter control of designs and products.
Caught up in a trade war
Now, chips are poised to get caught up in a trade war between the US and China.
On Air Force One Sunday, Trump said tariffs on semiconductors — which power any major technology from e-vehicles and iPhones to missile systems — “will be in place in the not distant future.”
“We want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country,” Trump reiterated.
The US president said he would announce tariffs rates for semiconductors “over the next week” and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said they would likely be in place “in a month or two.”
