Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC has listed Qualcomm among its customers for American-made chips, and the company’s management has confirmed that its products have begun to be manufactured in Arizona. The head of Qualcomm called TSMC’s decision to increase investment in American factories “music to our ears.”
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Recall that yesterday TSMC announced that it was increasing its funding for American enterprises from $65 billion to $165 billion and was ready to build three more wafer processing plants, two chip packaging plants and one new research center in the United States. In an interview with CNBC, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon called this decision great news and added that it will help diversify Qualcomm’s contractor manufacturing bases from a geographical point of view.
Some Qualcomm chips are already manufactured at TSMC in Arizona, and the company plans to expand their range in the future. “The more capacity they introduce, the more we will use them, just like in Taiwan, we will use them in other places,” the head of Qualcomm explained. The head of the company is not yet ready to assess the impact of customs tariffs on the company’s business. According to him, Qualcomm itself is a major exporter of chips from the United States, not an importer. Devices based on Qualcomm chips are manufactured all over the world, and now it is very difficult to predict the impact of American duties on the market.
Looking ahead, Qualcomm’s business will be more significantly impacted by the growth in demand for AI-enabled PCs, as well as smartphones with similar features, and the saturation of electronics in vehicles. These trends will outweigh the likely negative impact of tariffs, which will likely be short-lived, according to Amon.