SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has been in talks with the Trump administration to build Project Crystal Land, Son’s grand vision for a U.S. competitor to Shenzhen, China’s electronics manufacturing hub, with a population of over 17.5 million people, often dubbed as China’s Silicon Valley or the Silicon Valley of Hardware. According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan was originally for a single $1 trillion high-tech industrial city that encompasses the size of Los Angeles and will be built to the north of Phoenix, Arizona. This was supposed to house chip fabs, packaging plants, and processing facilities — basically, an entire semiconductor supply chain — while also providing housing to all the people working within it.
However, the administration’s plan has reportedly since changed from one mega site into several “Trump Industrial Parks” that will be built on federal land across the nation. Son then revised his proposal and said that the funding for the first phase of the plan would be part of Japan’s investment commitment to the U.S. as part of the trade deal the country struck with President Donald Trump in July. This updated plan tracks closely with Washington’s list of potential investments that Japan can fund, including nuclear power plants, energy infrastructure, and AI projects.
Despite Son’s enthusiasm, there is still no clear answer from the U.S. government on whether it would proceed with SoftBank’s proposals. The WSJ says that the required investment on the various sites would likely exceed Japan’s $550 billion commitment to U.S. manufacturing, plus it would also have to go through a lot of hoops to use federal land.
There’s also the complicated planning process to determine what kind of industries will be built on them, as well as which companies will be allowed to do so. Taiwan is set to help the U.S. build its own industrial parks, including assisting it with “science park management, attracting companies, integrating academic research with industry,” Taiwan National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen to the Financial Times. “No other country has done what we have done.”
However, TSMC has already declined to work with SoftBank on its Project Crystal Land, so unless the U.S. government compels it to work with the Japanese investor, Son would have to find another partner to help him build his industrial parks. Aside from that, he has also been in talks with other Japanese tech companies like Toshiba, Murata Manufacturing, and Fujikara, discussing projects that would support Washington’s push to develop local semiconductor manufacturing.
SoftBank has been betting big on semiconductors, investing billions of dollars in Arm, OpenAI, and, more recently, Intel. The U.S.’s push for AI supremacy thus would go well with the company’s strategy of going all-in on AI after it missed out in the early years of the LLM boom.
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