20210209 AI - Taiwan chip boom img

TSMC, which produces chips for tech giants such as Apple, Google and Qualcomm, accounts for one-third of total local stock market value and around 20% of estimated private sector investment. (Illustration by Michael Tsang)

Taiwan's economy feels heat as TSMC feeds global chip boom

Demand for 'strategic resource' fuels labor, power and water shortages

TAINAN, Taiwan -- Business has never been brisker for construction companies in Taiwan as the world's biggest contract chipmaker rushes to build facilities through the Lunar New Year holiday to meet surging demand.

Cranes, trucks, excavators and all manner of heavy vehicles stream in and out of the vast construction site for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s new factory in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan. The site will be the world's most advanced 3-nanometer chip production plant -- and is due to begin mass production in the second half of 2022.

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