The U.S. Department of Commerce is reportedly planning tariff carve-outs for AI hyperscalers within the country, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, among others. According to the Financial Times, the move will allow these companies to acquire the chips they need to remain competitive in the AI race, while still pushing chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to continue investing in the U.S.
Taiwan and the U.S. agreed on a trade deal last month, with Washington cutting tariffs on the island from 20% to 15% in exchange for a $250-billion commitment on direct investments, plus another $250 billion in credit guarantees from Taipei to allow its companies to invest in the American semiconductor industry. The 15% tariff is set to include chips made on the island, but Taiwanese companies building fabs in the U.S. will get an exemption.
These chip manufacturers can import two and a half times their fab’s planned capacity tariff-free while their plants are under construction. That number would then fall to just 1.5 times once they start churning out semiconductors locally. TSMC is expected to allocate its exemptions to its Big Tech clients that are ordering huge numbers of AI chips, but the total quantity of tariff-free chips will still depend on the company’s investments in the U.S.
At the moment, TSMC has already committed to invest $165 billion in the U.S., with one fab already operational in Arizona. Despite this, a source told the Financial Times that U.S. President Donald Trump is delaying the signing of the agreement. “We’re going to be monitoring what unfolds after this is unveiled like hawks to make sure that the integrity of what we’re trying to accomplish with the tariffs and the rebates isn’t undermined and that this doesn’t end up being a giveaway to TSMC,” the administration official said.
On the other hand, the TSMC board recently announced a $45 billion spending package on new fabs. This is a massive change for the company, which usually spreads out its capital appropriation throughout the year. This recent move instead saw a huge chunk of the chip maker’s planned $52 to $56-billion budget for capital expenditure allocated in the first quarter of 2026. It’s unclear how much of this will be spent on American fabs, though. Although Taiwan rejected the possibility of moving 40% of its semiconductor capacity inside the U.S.’s borders, it said that the production capacity of both local and American chip production is expected to scale hand-in-hand as the AI infrastructure build-out continues, driving record demand for the latest chips.
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