ANALYSIS / Not time to worry about TSMC's reported expansion in U.S.: Experts

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) Speculation surrounding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s (TSMC) potential expansion in the United States should not be overinterpreted, as structural and economic constraints mean such moves are unlikely to weaken Taiwan's central role in advanced chipmaking in the near future, experts said.

A recent report by The New York Times said Washington and Taipei had nearly finalized trade talks under which TSMC would be asked to add five more chip facilities in Arizona, nearly doubling its previously stated investment there.

Although TSMC did not confirm or deny the report at its earnings conference on Thursday, it has fueled concerns in Taiwan about the island's diminishing strategic importance amid rising geopolitical tensions.

However, analysts told CNA such concerns overlook timelines and fundamental industry realities.

Tech commentator Owen Lin (林宏文) said TSMC's U.S. investments have always been long-term in nature. Even the previously announced US$165 billion commitment in Arizona was understood as a roughly 10-year plan, as many TSMC sources had told him, given constraints such as infrastructure readiness, regulations and workforce availability.

"In semiconductors, fabs are not built simply by political declarations," Lin said, adding that yield performance, talent availability and learning curves ultimately determine success.

Early reports of lower margins at TSMC's U.S. fabs, he noted, largely reflect initial ramp-up challenges rather than long-term profitability trends, making it misleading to draw conclusions from short-term data.

Lin also pointed out that the foreign media report did not specify a timeline for the additional facilities, saying the scale of TSMC's U.S. investment would matter more than headline numbers.

Once investment reaches a certain scale, he said, it could attract suppliers to follow, helping form a local semiconductor cluster. "No supplier is going to come to the U.S. if there are only two fabs," Lin said.

Meanwhile, DSET CEO Jeremy Chang Chih-cheng (張智程) cited recent industry analyses indicating that manufacturing costs in the U.S. can be more than double those in Taiwan due to the absence of a mature semiconductor cluster, saying advanced manufacturing there currently lacks economic rationality.

"At this stage, U.S. manufacturing is driven mainly by security and political considerations," Chang said, adding that overseas capacity is unlikely to replace Taiwan's core role unless it becomes economically competitive -- a threshold he said that has not been reached.

According to Chang, the key variable is whether the U.S. can eventually develop a self-sustaining ecosystem comparable to Taiwan's science park model, encompassing suppliers, skilled engineers and R&D capabilities.

"TSMC is still primarily focused on meeting customer demand, and its decision to add capacity in the U.S. should be seen as an outcome of that overarching priority," Chang said.

On Thursday, TSMC projected its 2026 capital expenditure at between US$52 billion and US$56 billion, up 27-37 percent from US$40.9 billion in 2025.

About 60-80 percent of the spending will go toward advanced process development, TSMC Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang (黃仁昭) said.