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Comment by cainxinth | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook must sweat bullets every time he reads a headline about China potentially invading Taiwan.

if China invaded Taiwan, probably we'd have 100x more problems and demand for apple hardware would dwindle

prob not his worse case scenario :)

Tim Cook has shown a pretty serious willingness to work with the CCP in the past, and their human rights track record right now is pretty bad. What makes you think either he wouldn't do so after an invasion or that China would do anything to disrupt one of the biggest prices and competitive advantages in the world (TSMC)?

The US Government would clearly engage in economic warfare, at the very least, with China if they were to invade Taiwan. Likely access to cutting edge chips would go with it... assuming China is occupying Taiwan.

Yes, this would lower QoL pretty significantly for both countries.

Isn't USA in the process of basically relocating TSMC to Arizona for that reason? And it's not for iPhones. It's because USA military can't risk having the chip supply cut off in wartime.

No. What you're missing is that the fabs moving to the US are pretty much just the ones the US military might need.

TSMC isn't moving their cutting edge production here. The fabs will be a node or two behind.

Which is why there is a lot of pressure on Intel to pull off their new EUV-2 fabs.

> relocating TSMC to Arizona

That's a big no. What's actually happening is that TSMC is building a new factory in Arizona, including training a brand new US workforce. It remains to be seen whether it can even be done. Toyota famously failed with a similar attempt in Fremont, California.

It's a question of whether TSMC is successful because of some sort of strategy that is compatible with American work culture, or do the actual Taiwanese workers play a significant part in their success? Unanswered thus far.

>It remains to be seen whether it can even be done. Toyota famously failed with a similar attempt in Fremont, California.

Every Japanese auto maker has had US plants for decades. Toyota's oldest, in Georgetown KY, has been there since 1986.

The Fremont factory predates the Georgetown factory by a few years, and of course even more if we consider the pre-Toyota history of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Motor_Manufacturing_Ken...

TSMC is expanding into the US for that reason. Their 3nm fabs will be in Arizona (in addition to Taiwan)

Arizona won't do N3 until 2026.

TSMC said that the leading node will always be in Taiwan and N+1 will be outside.

So Apple wont be buying the Arizona chips since they’ll always be behind. Was Tim Cook saying all those big words in the fab opening ceremony just for show?

> But as Steve Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

> Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

> Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...

That's incredibly smart, when world powers rely on you to deliver cutting edge hardware either directly or by proxy, you can bet they'll also have a word or two to say about any plans China might have.

I'd imagine it would be WW3 and probably a civilization breaking event, would take a long time to recover from.

Sweat bullets? You may be confusing Tim Cook with Tim Gunn.

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