>The US needs fabs on-shore.
Intel, GlobalFoundries, TSMC and Samsung all have fabs in the US.
TSMC have a fab at WA and building one in AZ.
Samsung have a fab at TX
US have plenty
Intel, GlobalFoundries, TSMC and Samsung all have fabs in the US.
TSMC have a fab at WA and building one in AZ.
Samsung have a fab at TX
US have plenty
"Counterintuitively, the famously thirsty industry can even improve the local water supply due to a focus on reclamation and purification—Intel has funded 15 water restoration projects in the Grand Canyon State with a goal of restoring 937 million gallons per year, and it expects to reach net positive water use once the projects are completed."
"What Arizona lacks in water, it makes up for with overall stability—the state is very seismically stable and does not suffer from hurricanes, with low risks of other natural disasters such as tornadoes to boot. Building chip fabs without such guarantees is possible—for example, Intel has a large presence in Oregon—but chip fabricators on the West Coast must take extreme isolation measures, which Arizona plants don't require."
But if I were in charge, I'd try to put some fabs as close to the Northeast megalopolis as possible while still being cheap. So probably like... Pennsylvania? Upstate NY? Hell, why not Maine? Better weather in the NE (which isn't much of a statement, Arizona is barely human habitable) and it might be interesting to experiment with some alternative tech culture to Silicon Valley's (more down to Earth, IMO).
Think about it. They’re building a massive plant. This is a basic input factor. What model of the world reconciles the idea that these guys are very good at making semiconductors for decades but unable to model changes in the input factors over that period? Does that model sound like the highest probability model to explain their behavior?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/why-do-chip-makers-k...
"Counterintuitively, the famously thirsty industry can even improve the local water supply due to a focus on reclamation and purification—Intel has funded 15 water restoration projects in the Grand Canyon State with a goal of restoring 937 million gallons per year, and it expects to reach net positive water use once the projects are completed."
reclaim the water is the key
Exactly! Fabs use lots of hazardous chemicals, it's not like they can just dump the water contaminated with these into the next river. And if they clean it, why not clean it a little more and reuse it?
The major reason for them being in AZ is constant(ish) weather, cheap land, workforce, and cheap power.