The easy part of a smartphone to create for EU is the part that is done in the US.
The difficult part is the hardware. That is also why the iPhone is produced in Asia. Replacing TSMC is much more difficult than the software.
The difficult part is the hardware. That is also why the iPhone is produced in Asia. Replacing TSMC is much more difficult than the software.
iPhone chips are largely produced in Arizona, and TSMC's 2nm fabs are scheduled to come online by 2028. 30% of TSMC's global production is schedule to be produced in America.
USA has been strategically re-homing TSMC to the USA mainland for a long time now.
Contrast with the EU which has done nothing to become self-reliant, and really just has no ideas. It is unfortunate.
It appears that TSMC are not deploying the latest nodes to US for multiple years after they've entered volume production in Taiwan.
> First Fab: High-volume production on N4 process technology started in Q4 2024.
> Second Fab: Construction was completed on the fab structure in 2025. Volume production on N3 process technology targeted for 2028.
> Third Fab: In April 2025, TSMC broke ground on the site of the third fab, slated for N2 and A16 process technologies. Targeting volume production by the end of the decade.
> TSMC Arizona will play a crucial role in increasing U.S. production of advanced semiconductor technology and elevate the state of Arizona as an American center of innovation.
https://www.tsmc.com/static/abouttsmcaz/index.htm
> In July 2025, Wei indicated that the company would speed up its production timelines on multiple manufacturing facilities following an additional $100 billion investment in Arizona. He stated that the completion of a "gigafab" cluster totaling six facilities would account for 30 percent of TSMC's 2-nanometer and more advanced capacity semiconductor production within the state.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2025/07/...
> Creating good smartphone software is not easy.
Yes, but it's not rocket science either (and even if it were, the EU has both rocket scientists and a space port).
Maybe it's been too long for people to even imagine it, but European companies were fully capable of developing a smartphone OS and running an app certification platform (there were no app stores yet, as the industry was very fragmented) less than two decades ago.
Gobally Android also has a much larger market share than Apple. (Yes the US is the opposite, it is an outlier.)
The money problem is the sticking point; even if you can find investors, if you don't have guarantees of sales you're boned. Actually, this is the other problem: Android is not profitable per se, you don't get an "android license fee" on your bill if you buy a new phone. It's the tie-in with Google's services (default search engine with ads, app store, etc) that make it work. And even without those, Google is a company that originally made money off of ads on webpages, they could do whatever they want outside of that because their primary source of income was so reliable.
They weren’t commercially successful because of network effects, which I think matter less when your back is against the wall to migrate away from the duopoly.
Debatable
Android is a solid basis for a homegrown solution. We just never had the need to build one just yet. What Google and Apple built was convenient. But it's not as irreplaceable as some might think.
Except all proprietary drivers tying you to an ancient Linux kernel and preventing upgrades of the OS.
You drastically underestimate how complicated it will be. Here is one attempt: https://puri.sm/posts/breaking-ground/