Taiwan’s TSMC claims to have raked in a whopping NT$1.42 trillion (€40.3 billion) in government subsidies over the last 18 months, with NT$671.28 billion (€19 billion) landing just in the first half of 2025.
According to the firm’s financial disclosures, that largesse is coming from the United States, Germany, Japan and China, which are eager to hand out public cash to grease the wheels of chip production on their soil.
TSMC reckons it’s signed subsidy contracts across the board, with Arizona, Dresden, Kumamoto and Nanjing governments coughing up for real estate, equipment, and operational fluff. But while TSMC’s statements trumpet these numbers, official filings suggest a slightly less magical reality.
But TSMC only reported NT$35.1 billion (€995 million) in grants for the first quarter of 2025. While that’s a decent pile of dosh, it’s nowhere near the NT$351.49 billion (€9.9 billion) the outfit claimed for the same period in local media.
The US government, is pouring cash into TSMC in a desperate bid to catch up in advanced chipmaking. The US Commerce Department handed TSMC a fat subsidy package worth US$6.6 billion in grants, plus another US$5 billion in cut-price loans, to build a trio of fabs in Arizona. The first will supposedly be pumping out 4nm chips by the end of 2024, the second is prepped for 3nm production, and the third is earmarked for 2nm and the mysterious A16 process.
Japanese taxpayers have been roped in too. TSMC's fab in Kumamoto is expected to be churning out chips by the end of 2024, while another facility for special processes will break ground depending on infrastructure readiness. TSMC pocketed NT$47.5 billion (€1.35 billion) from Japan and China in 2023, six times more than the year before.
Over in Europe, TSMC has partnered up with Bosch, Infineon and NXP to build a fab in Dresden. The German government is chucking in €5 billion in subsidies to help out, but that plant won’t be producing until 2027.
TSMC chairman Mark Liu said that “the current focus is on building recycled water systems, gas and chemical supply,” which sounds a bit like code for “we’ve got a big field and some pipes.”
For a company that prides itself on precision, TSMC’s subsidy maths is starting to look suspicious. If it really has hoovered up NT$1.42 trillion (€40.3 billion) in a year and a half, then Apple must be paying them over the odds.