TSMC: Taiwanese suppliers to follow

Taiwan wants to help its high-tech suppliers to settle at locations of the semiconductor giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) in Germany and Japan.

In Germany, the initial aim is to help companies gain a foothold and establish themselves in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), as Taiwan is the global leader for hardware in this field, said Economics Minister Jyh-Huei Kuo in Taipei. This would help other countries to develop this field.

The Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC is building a factory in Dresden, Saxony, where the production of chips for the automotive industry is set to start in 2027. The industry giant’s first plant in Europe is set to create 2,000 jobs. TSMC and the companies Bosch, Infineon and NXP Semiconductor, which are already based in Dresden, are involved in the investment.

Taiwan also wants to bring the suppliers to Japan. According to Kuo, his agency’s “top priority” is to set up a service company in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Kyushu to help companies in the TSMC supply chain to establish their production there as early as possible. According to Kuo, the same principle will also be applied in Germany. The Taiwanese chip giant is already producing in Japan and wants to expand.

Clark Tseng from the industry association Semi Taiwan spoke of 20 to 30 suppliers from various sectors that should settle in Kyushu in the case of Japan. The situation should be “similar” in Germany, he explained. Tseng and Kuo spoke in the run-up to the Semicon Taiwan trade fair at the beginning of September, which is expected to attract tens of thousands of visitors and exhibitors from the semiconductor and AI industry from 56 countries.

dpa