Nvidia announces its intention to manufacture some artificial intelligence chips in the United States.

Nvidia announced that it has secured over one million square feet of manufacturing space for the construction and testing of artificial intelligence chips in Arizona and Texas, as part of its strategy to shift some of its production to the United States. The company began producing its Blackwell chips at TSMC's factories in Phoenix, Arizona, and is establishing "supercomputer" manufacturing plants in Texas, working in collaboration with Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas. Additionally, in Arizona, Nvidia is partnering with Amkor and SPIL for packaging and testing operations.

Mass production at the plants in Houston and Dallas is expected to ramp up over the next 12 to 15 months. Over the next four years, the company aims to generate up to half a trillion dollars in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, highlighted that "the engines of the world's AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time." Huang emphasized that adding local manufacturing will better enable them to meet the growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthen their supply chain, and improve their resilience.

This news comes just days after reports indicated that Nvidia nearly avoided export controls on its H20 chip by securing a manufacturing agreement in the country with the Trump administration. Reportedly, the H20, Nvidia's most advanced chip that can still be exported to China, was saved thanks to Huang's promise to invest in components for AI data centers in the United States. Other AI companies have also adopted an "America first" approach to gain support from the administration, such as OpenAI, which partnered with SoftBank and Oracle for a $500 billion U.S. data centers initiative, and Microsoft, which committed to investing $80 billion in AI data centers for its fiscal year 2025, allocating 50% to the U.S.

However, efforts to strengthen the domestic chip manufacturing industry face significant challenges. Tariffs and trade restrictions from China threaten the supply of raw materials necessary for chip manufacturing in the U.S., and there is also a substantial shortage of skilled workers for chip assembly. Meanwhile, actions by the Trump administration to undermine the CHIPS Act, passed in 2022 to distribute billions in grants to chip manufacturers, could disincentivize future investments from semiconductor giants.