The United Arab Emirates has become an extremely contested zone for semiconductor chip manufacturing and innovation. The country itself wants to be known as a go-to producer of both chips and artificial intelligence technology and this has caught the attention of multiple nations, including the U.S. and China, the Wall Street Journal said late last month.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics are eyeing UAE as a destination to build new “megafactories,” which could directly compete with the homegrown factories the U.S. is pushing right now, depending on the organizations’ cooperativeness.
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Last week, President Biden ratified the Building Chips in America Act, designed to break down barriers that might delay or prevent the U.S. from constructing its own chip megafactories. Among other measures, the bill excludes such factories from having to undergo environmental reviews prompted by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
As top brass at TSMC and Samsung visit UAE and the Gulf region to scope out a home for their factories, they are also holding court with U.S. federal officials about China’s potential involvement and investments in the region. The U.S. is particularly concerned about China gaining access to “advanced AI-related chips” that TSMC and Samsung are in talks to pump out.
