TSMC has successfully mass-produced NVIDIA (Nvidia) Blackwell wafers for the first time at its Fab 21 factory in Arizona, USA, representing an important milestone in the re-industrialization of US semiconductor manufacturing in recent years. The wafer uses TSMC’s 4N process technology, demonstrating Fab 21’s powerful manufacturing capabilities. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said at the event that this development echoed the "America First" re-industrialization vision promoted by US President Trump in the past, emphasizing the importance of revitalizing US manufacturing and creating jobs. It also symbolizes that the U.S. technology industry is actively building a resilient supply chain to cope with increasing trade and military uncertainties.
In response, Huang highlighted this production during a speech at the GTC Technology Conference in Washington this week. He emphasized the importance of NVIDIA to U.S. national interests and warned that restricting NVIDIA's exports would seriously harm U.S. interests. Huang Renxun also pointed out that the latest Blackwell GPU has been produced in the United States, showing that NVIDIA is actively playing a role in ensuring the stability of the supply chain. However, data also shows that the vast majority of the world's most cutting-edge chip manufacturing is still concentrated in TSMC facilities in Taiwan.
In fact, NVIDIA and many other major American technology companies have announced large-scale infrastructure projects in the United States in the past year. This "reshoring" trend has its own practical economic and political considerations. On the one hand, companies hope to avoid the vagaries of trade tariffs and export restrictions that the Trump administration has imposed on multiple industries and countries since January 2025. On the other hand, this is also one of the macro trends in the global transformation towards "technology nationalization" and "multi-polar supply chain". The goal of this shift is to move away from over-reliance on a single region and, in particular, reduce dependence on China and vice versa. In particular, the United States and China continue to compete in the chip industry. The scope of competition has recently extended from the chip supply of Nexperia Chip Company in the Netherlands to the export of rare earth minerals.
In all considerations, risks from geopolitics are always at the core. Taiwan manufactures 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. The shadow of China's potential future invasion of Taiwan continues to hang over the entire semiconductor supply chain, which has raised the need for supply chain resilience to unprecedented heights. In this context, former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger expressed praise for the news that NVIDIA Blackwell has chosen to produce in TSMC Arizona. Pat Gelsinger said that it is crucial for the most cutting-edge chip supply chain to maintain resilience, and believes that this move will help NVIDIA develop and iterate faster and on a larger scale in the future.
Market observers were slightly surprised by Pat Gelsinger's public praise. Because it was during his tenure as CEO that Intel tried its best to win NVIDIA's foundry contract. However, even with the recent NVIDIA decision and the support of the US government, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) has not yet won the favor of these large technology manufacturers for foundry contracts.
The period from 2021 to 2024 when Pat Gelsinger served as Intel CEO was one of the worst periods of financial performance in Intel's history. It fell seriously behind rival AMD in both the consumer and enterprise CPU fields. Although his plan to build a wafer fab in Germany was eventually canceled, the Arizona facility he led the construction of has recently been successfully put into operation.