Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is reportedly in talks with Nvidia Corp to produce its Blackwell AI chips at TSMC’s new factory in Arizona, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The Arizona facility is set to begin production early next year, the sources revealed.
Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, unveiled in March, are currently manufactured at TSMC’s facilities in Taiwan. These chips have seen surging demand from clients involved in generative AI and accelerated computing, thanks to their performance, reportedly 30 times faster for tasks like chatbot responses.
If the deal goes through, it would secure another high-profile client for TSMC’s Arizona plant, which is expected to start mass production next year.
Both TSMC and Nvidia declined to comment on the discussions, which remain confidential, according to the sources. Two of the sources added that Apple and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are already clients of the Arizona facility, though neither Apple nor AMD immediately responded to requests for comment.
Despite plans to produce the Blackwell chip’s front-end process in Arizona, the chips would still need to be sent back to Taiwan for packaging. This is due to the Arizona facility lacking CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) technology, critical for Blackwell chips, the sources noted. Currently, all of TSMC’s CoWoS capacity is based in Taiwan.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is investing billions of dollars into building three facilities in Phoenix. The project has received substantial U.S. government subsidies as part of efforts to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States.
