According to a report from Bloomberg that cites statements made by Tim Cook at an internal meeting, Apple is apparently intending to start purchasing chips produced in the United States and Europe. This information comes from a report that cites comments made by Tim Cook. According to the statements that were reportedly made by Cook, Apple has “already made a choice to be purchasing out of a factory in Arizona” that is scheduled to begin production in 2024. This means that the business may start utilizing such chips in around two years. Additionally, he said that Apple had intentions of “sourcing from Europe when those plans become more obvious.”
TSMC, which stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is the primary manufacturer of Apple’s custom-designed chips. These chips include the M2 chip that is found in Apple’s most recent MacBooks as well as the A-series CPUs found in the iPhone. The majority of the business’s fabrication plants are situated in Taiwan, as the name of the company suggests; however, it is in the process of building a cutting-edge facility in Arizona, which is expected to begin chip production around the year 2024.
Given that Apple currently conducts a significant amount of business with TSMC, it is quite probable that the fab in question is the one from which the company intends to purchase chips. It is, however, not the only company building a facility there; Intel also has plans to build an additional Arizona factory that is set to open in 2024. Intel was motivated to make these plans after the United States government passed legislation to invest over $50 billion in domestic semiconductor production. Although Intel has said that it intends to produce chips for other firms in addition to building its own CPUs, it seems doubtful that Apple intends to make this a significant component of Apple’s semiconductor strategy moving ahead. It is generally agreed that the company’s cutting-edge technology is not as sophisticated as that of TSMC, which almost probably had a role in Apple’s decision to switch to using silicon for its Mac series.
It should not come as much of a surprise that Apple is investigating the possibility of acquiring production capacity in regions other than Asia, regardless of whether business or companies wind up manufacturing Apple’s chips in the United States and Europe. The business has been attempting to geographically diversify other elements of its supply chain as well, and over the last several years it has been increasing the amount of iPhones that are being manufactured in India. By the year 2020, the company has already begun manufacturing certain AirPods in Vietnam, and there are rumors that it is also doing the same with MacBooks, Apple Watches, and iPads.
