Biden Admin Announces USD6.4B Subsidy To Samsung For Chips Fab In Texas

The Department of Commerce has announced a USD$6.4 billion grant for tech giant Samsung to expand advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Austin, Texas. The announcement is the second major allocation from the USD$39 billion CHIPS pot this month, following a USD$6.6 billion grant to TSMC to boost operations in Arizona.

• According to Commerce, the grant will unlock USD$40 billion of private investment from Samsung to upgrade a fabrication facility and, “support a comprehensive semiconductor cluster for leading-edge logic, advanced packaging, and R&D.”
• The Washington Post notes that although US companies design many of the most advanced computer chips, "they are overwhelmingly built in a small handful of facilities in Taiwan and South Korea,” raising concerns the US could be cut off from the critical technology in the event of political instability in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Commerce said in a statement: “Because of investments like Samsung’s, the United States is projected to be on track to produce roughly 20% of the world’s leading-edge logic chips by 2030.”
• President Biden said: “This announcement will unleash over $40 billion in investment from Samsung, and cement central Texas’s role as a state-of-the-art semiconductor ecosystem...”
• Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said: “The chips that Samsung will be making in Texas are important components to our most advanced technologies, from artificial intelligence to high-performance computing and 5G communications.”
• Democrat strategists will be hoping that the investments could win votes in both Arizona and Texas – two states which are likely to be battlegrounds in November’s presidential election.