US-China tech war: Taiwan’s TSMC joins American chip coalition in another blow to China’s self-sufficiency drive
- Major world chip makers and buyers set up a new coalition to bolster American semiconductor industry
- New coalition may make it harder for China to achieve semiconductor independence from US technologies, analysts say
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Co (TSMC), the world’s biggest chip foundry, has joined a new lobbying group dominated by top American chip developers and users, in a move that may make it harder for China to wean itself off a US-led global semiconductor supply chain.
The Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC), which includes 65 major players along the semiconductor value chain, announced its formation on Tuesday with the immediate purpose of pushing the American government to provide subsidies for chip manufacturing on US soil.
It is dominated by American tech firms such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Intel, but also includes a number of Asian and European heavyweights in the semiconductor supply chain, such as TSMC and MediaTek from Taiwan, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix from South Korea as well as Holland’s ASML, the only supplier of the advanced photolithography equipment used to make high-end chips.
While ostensibly created for lobbying purposes in the US, the coalition showcases US influence over the globalised semiconductor supply chain, and is likely to complicate Chinese government efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on US technologies, analysts said.