Chipmaker Nvidia says it plans to build artificial intelligence servers worth as much as $500bn in the United States over the next four years with help from partners such as TSMC. Nvidia is the latest US tech firm to back a push by President Donald Trump’s administration for local manufacturing.

Monday’s announcement includes the production of its Blackwell AI chips at TSMC’s factory in Phoenix, Arizona, and supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas by Foxconn and Wistron, which are expected to ramp up in 12 to 15 months.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

“Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resiliency,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.

“Manufacturing AI chips and supercomputers in the US will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the coming decades,” Nvidia said in a statement.

Huang had said in March that Nvidia sees little short-term impact from higher US tariffs but would move production to the US in the longer term without giving a timeline.

Advertisement

According to an analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, tariffs could cause 740,000 people to lose their jobs across the US economy by the end of the year.

Nvidia’s announcement aligns the AI chip giant – whose processors are mostly made in Taiwan – with a clutch of tech firms that have pledged to bring manufacturing back to the US amid threats of steep tariffs from Trump.

The Trump administration touted the move. “Onshoring these industries is good for the American worker, good for the American economy, and good for American national security – and the best is yet to come,” the White House said in a statement.

“It is unlikely Nvidia would have moved any production to the US if it was not for pressure from the Trump administration,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria told the news agency Reuters.

“The half a trillion number is likely hyperbole in the same way Apple made a half a trillion promise.”

Apple, which assembles most of its iPhones in China, made a $500bn investment commitment to expand in the US. In February, the Silicon Valley-based tech giant said it would open a new manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas.

While Apple’s investment would be the largest it has made, the company made similar commitments under both President Joe Biden in 2021 of $430bn and during Trump’s first term in 2018 of $350bn.

Nvidia’s announcement came three days after Trump exempted electronics such as smartphones and chips from his reciprocal tariffs on China, but the White House said it would be announcing a new tariff rate on imported chips over the next week.

Advertisement

The exemptions indicate an increasing awareness within the Trump administration of the pain that the tariffs could inflict on inflation-weary US consumers as well as on the booming AI industry, which relies on chip-related tools from China and Taiwan.

Nvidia said on Monday that TSMC has started production of its latest generation of chips at its Arizona factory.

Despite the announcement, the move has not quelled investor fears. As of noon in New York (16:00 GMT), the chipmaker’s stock was trading down 0.8 percent.