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TSMC to make advanced AI semiconductors in Japan
- SilverElfin 8mo agoIsn’t this an erosion of the silicon shield Taiwan is protected by? If they make semiconductors everywhere else then the world has less economic incentive to protect Taiwan from war.
- trvz 8mo agoNo. To get to Taiwan, Mainland Taiwan first has to go through China, the ocean, and Taiwan. They’ll be fine without anyone else’s help.
- stingraycharles 8mo agoYes, it is. The unfortunate reality is that western societies care more about TSMC than Taiwan, and they’re hedging their bets this way.
- david2ndaccount 8mo agoThe world won’t allow a dependence on a single geopolitically threatened entity in the long run, so either they defuse that risk themselves or risk a competitor filling that role. This move is better for TSMC itself.
- 3eb7988a1663 8mo agoWho would protect Taiwan anymore? I have my doubts that any prior defense agreement would be upheld today.
- adastra22 8mo agoWhat defense agreements?
- porridgeraisin 8mo agoAmerica doesn't defend taiwan for its semiconductors - it's all american IP anyways. They defend it for the same reason they defend japan and Phillipines - to control the pacific "frontier" these three countries form before guam. Typically against China, but they would do the same nonetheless.
- dd_xplore 8mo agoBut why should the world depend on a single country or entity? Everything should be diversified.
- raincole 8mo agoYes. But it will happen one way or another. Taiwan's Sovereignty is completely depending on one single country, the US. It's not like that Taiwan can just say no if the US demands more diversified chip production.
- tzahifadida 8mo agoDisagree. Making the world less centralized to TSMC chips makes less incentive to invade at the near future. There is no strategic upside to do it right now. If nothing else, to me it seems china is a strategic mover, and will not sacrifice anything for no strategic value.
- bschwindHN 8mo agoChina doesn't want to invade Taiwan for TSMC.
- Waterluvian 8mo agoThat’s a deeply oversimplified understanding of Taiwan and reunification. There’s so much good reading on the topic out there and it’s really worth even just skimming the surface of it.
- brutalc 8mo ago[dead]
- diego_sandoval 8mo agoIf TSMC didn't exist, China would probably have already invaded Taiwan.
- coffinbirth 8mo ago[flagged]
- AlexCoventry 8mo agoThe weapons are sent on the basis that more expensive the PRC anticipates an invasion of of Taiwan to be, the less likely it is to invade.
- avhception 8mo agoThe US has done a lot of unsavory things. But this comment is just disingenuous. For example, discounting Ukraines unwillingness to simply accept foreign rule by the country that brought them Holodomor as purely based on American propaganda and arms sales is either delusional or Russian propaganda.
- coffinbirth 8mo agoThen please explain why Victoria Nuland was giving out cookies in Maidan Square in 2014? #NoForeignInterference
- AlexCoventry 8mo agoSeems likely that Takaichi has given Taiwan a Japanese security guarantee. [1] This may be a quid pro quo. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p-4nFgs9fRE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p-4nFgs9fRE
- topsykrates 8mo agoDespite what Takaichi says, if there is a war in Taiwan, Japan can only defend itself and it's interests in its sovereign territory. Japan's pacifist constitution only allows defense, even building an aircraft carrier was very controversial because it's considered to be too offensive. It's highly unlikely that Japan will actively help Taiwan defend itself
- mullingitover 8mo agoMy guess: Japan deletes the pacifist promises in its constitution, fully rearms, announces nuclear weapons capability (or does an Israel and ‘refuses to confirm or deny’), and signs a mutual defense pact with Taiwan.
- raincole 8mo agoShe didn't give a security guarantee. And even if she wanted she can't. Japan can't even sell arms to Taiwan right now. Even starting selling arms would be a huge change, let alone a mutual defensive pact. It's extremely hard to change the constitution of Japan. It's the only constitution that has never been revised since WWII. LDP has been pushing this agenda for decades and nothing really happened.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- typ 8mo agoThe silicon shield became a slogan that has only been popularized in recent years. The potential crisis of war has been there for more than half a century (even before semiconductors became a thing). The real value proposition of the status quo is the freedom of navigation between the northeastern Asian countries and the SEA (the Strait of Malacca, aka the lifeline of energy imports), and the consequential domino effect of the entire western Pacific. Also, not sure why everyone forgets about it. People should have learned from the experience of the pandemic that the cutting-edge foundry nodes are not really the crucial ones, as being the bottleneck of industrial infrastructure. A delay of the next-gen iPhone or RTX gaming card isn't that catastrophic. But a shortage of embedded MCUs, which are actually fabricated by mature nodes, could stall the entire industrial base of a country.
- cynicalsecurity 8mo agoNature is healing.jpg
- yanhangyhy 8mo agoTaiwanese politicians, like those under American-style democracy in many regions, only care about safeguarding their own interests and have no concern for how to protect the interests of the public. Once TSMC’s factories are completed in Japan and the United States and the technology is secured, Taiwan will no longer have any value worth protecting. Of course, the politicians can always take planes and leave in advance.
- earthnail 8mo agoNot necessarily. If TSMC doesn’t build these fabs in Japan or USA, these governments might just mandate that chips are manufactured elsewhere. Intel could have a big comeback. This keeps ppl locked in to the TSMC universe. The Japan and US fabs produce just a fraction of what these countries need.
- KK7NIL 8mo agoThe US protected Taiwanese sovereignty for decades before they even had a single semiconductor fab. This idea of "the silicon shield" just shows a complete ignorance of the history of Taiwan and its place in the geopolitical order.
- XorNot 8mo agoThe US historically did not threaten military action against NATO allied nations as well. The past is of no value in predicting the future right now.
- mayama 8mo agoDecades in which China started as peasant army(US admin view) and wasn't mostly a peer adversity. But, that changed almost a decade ago and defending Taiwan will become more costly and time passes. New American security document, mostly focusing on America, even acknowledges this.
- mschuster91 8mo ago> The US protected Taiwanese sovereignty for decades before they even had a single semiconductor fab. That was before the current administration wiped out the very idea of "soft power" and put everything including NATO up for disposal. There is, frankly, no way for anyone to trust the US again until the US undergoes steps similar to post-1945 Germany.
- kyboren 8mo agoJapan and America have now both gotten TSMC to commit to a decent level of domestic advanced-node fabrication. Meanwhile Europe only got 40k WSPMs of 12+ nm capacity: https://overclock3d.net/news/software/bringing_advanced_semiconductor_manufacturing_to_europe_esmc_is_making_it_happen/ https://overclock3d.net/news/software/bringing_advanced_semi...
- avhception 8mo agoGermany squandered so much money on nonsense, when they could have simply driven the few kilometers over to Eindhoven and bought an ASML machine for "Silicon Saxony". Sure, it would have taken years and years and serious commitment by the government and private sector to make that a successful move. But instead of putting in the hard work with a clear vision for the future, we mostly spend our time whining and wailing. It's a shame.
- danielbln 8mo agoThe only forward facing government that actually had a drive to change anything useful for the future broke apart with internal squabbles, with a big part of it by the market liberals torpedoing things left and right. And now we're back to a government of stand still, like we did the almost two decades before. We get what we deserve.
- Flatterer3544 8mo agoThis standstill mostly started happening when the capitalism took hold too deep and wide, look at Sweden and its golden age that lasted until all the restrictions on capitalism were silently removed. While capitalism is a good model, it needs to be kept balanced, restricted.. Shareholder primacy is ruining everything, too much influence in politics from too many external sources.
- throwaway_20357 8mo agoNot sure what you're talking about. The last "forward facing" government was about 50y ago, the last one at least driving meaningful reforms almost 25y ago. To me it seems the more Europe got integrated, the more Germany lost the plot.
- Herring 8mo agoChina has many faults. Invading other countries is not one of them. They haven’t dropped bombs on foreign soil in over 40 years. The Chinese playbook here is to first copy then out-scale and out-innovate until eventually nobody remembers why Taiwan was so important.
- robinwhg 8mo agoHave you ever heard of Tibet?
- randomNumber7 8mo agoThis is more than 40 years ago and they likely didn't need many bombs for it.
- LunaSea 8mo agoHave you heard of Hong Kong?
- insane_dreamer 8mo agobe it far from me to defend China, but it didn't take over HK -- the UK's treaty expired and it had to return it; it was always going to be the case China has a highly authoritarian government that affords its citizens no political freedom (economic freedom, yes, so long as it aligns with the CCP), and is very dangerous (much more so than Russia even); but when it comes to _foreign policy_ despite the sabre-rattling over the 9 dash line, it has so far performed much better (or smarter, one might say) than the US
- LunaSea 8mo agoRead the dates again, the date for integration of Hong Kong into China wasn't 2020.
- jeeeb 8mo agoIf this was just about semiconductors then this would be a reasonable take but I doubt semi-conductors are anything more than a minor footnote in China’s strategic calculus vis-a-vis Taiwan. Reunification with Taiwan has been a major policy goal of the CCP since the civil war and is one of Xi’s explicit policy goals. He just reaffirmed this commitment as part of his New Year’s speech. Historically China has lacked force projection capability. However it has had a multi-decade modernisation and military build-up which has drastically changed this situation. Further we’ve seen significant tightening of CCP control over society and in particular the military in Xi’s term. A straight forward analysis of these events, in line with Xi’s public statements and past Chinese actions, is that the ground work is being laid for encirclement of Taiwan followed by China taking over, by force if necessary.
- qwertytyyuu 8mo agoIsn’t Japan even more earthquake prone than Taiwan? Is that a good idea for the most sensitive electronics known to man?
- mrweasel 8mo agoI was going to ask if TSMC just have some weird earthquake fetish. Realistically it's probably just that Japan is politically stable and safer than the other options in the area, while remaining fairly close to the rest of the supply chain.
- sbinnee 8mo agoNot surprising from the fact that Taiwanese like Japan
- RobertoG 8mo agoA fact that is itself quite surprising, if you think about it.
- m-schuetz 8mo agoIs it, though? Japan and America also have good relations, despite the latter nuking the former twice. Germany and other EU states are close now despite being on opposite sites in two world wars. Some/most countries manage to move on from past conflicts.
- andrewstuart 8mo agoPretty clear these days that the bottlenecks in technology manufacturing are now weaponising their monopolies/duopolies / triopolies. They’ve become the trolls under the bridge and will squeeze every passerby for every dollar they’ve got. The days of cheap computing have been in decline and are now dead, replaced with giga profits for this companies who managed to the the indispensable links in a chain with no or minimal competition.
- etrvic 8mo agoIs this a decision took in light of the new prime minister’s party winning 2/3 lower house majority and her statements about protecting Taiwan against China?
- engelo_b 8mo ago[dead]
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]