- Micron plans $250B+ in U.S. chip investment through 2035, creating 90,000+ jobs.
- Samsung and TSMC are raising chip prices as AI demand outpaces supply.
- Taiwan’s central bank flagged AI bubble risk while holding interest rates steady.
Chipmakers are racing to meet soaring demand driven by the AI boom, reshaping manufacturing, prices, and investment plans.
Micron Technology said it will invest more than $250 billion in its US operations by 2035 to expand memory chip production.
The investment, up from the $200 billion announced last year, reflects strong AI demand and President Donald Trump’s push to boost domestic chip manufacturing.
A large portion of the funding is being used on a semiconductor campus in New York, which Micron claims is operating more than 25% ahead of schedule.
The buildout is anticipated to generate over 90,000 jobs nationwide when combined with expansion at its sites in Virginia and Idaho.
The Trump administration has made bringing chip production domestically a top priority in an effort to reduce the United States’ reliance on foreign chip manufacturers, boost the country’s economy, and maintain its lead in the global AI race.
Micron will invest $3 billion in bolstering the American supply chain as part of the plan, with $500 million going toward improvements at GlobalWafers’ 300-millimeter silicon wafer facility in Sherman, Texas.
Additionally, a 10-year agreement between the two companies secured a substantial supply of unprocessed silicon wafers for Micron’s future requirements.
The business of Micron, which provides memory chips for Nvidia’s AI gear, has flourished. Following Thursday’s statement, its stock increased in early trading, continuing a run that has seen shares rise more than 200 percent this year.
The business reported last month that $22 billion worth of memory chip orders had already been committed by clients in the data center, consumer, and automotive segments.
Asian foundries raise prices under pressure
While Micron is investing for the long term, Asian chipmakers are already benefiting from the AI boom.
After struggling to attract customers just months ago, Samsung Foundry has reportedly raised prices for new customers by up to 15%, particularly for advanced 4nm and 5nm chips.
It has also increased prices for some 8nm automotive chips and recently recorded its first monthly profit in three years.
Samsung Foundry landed a $16.5 billion chip deal with Tesla last year, and business has kept improving since. Reports say AMD, Anthropic, BYD, Google, and Meta are all looking at building chips on Samsung’s 2-nanometer and 4-nanometer lines.
Normally, prices settle once a factory gets good at making a chip in bulk. But AI demand has outpaced supply, pushing both Samsung Foundry and rival TSMC to raise prices.
TSMC has reportedly bumped prices between 5 and 10 percent on its 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer, and 7-nanometer lines.
Taiwan’s central bank flags bubble risk
All this fast spending is starting to worry regulators. Taiwan’s central bank governor, Yang Chin-long, told lawmakers on Thursday that while the AI boom is built on real growth, the risk of a bubble is real too.
Speaking at a parliamentary hearing, he said the bank has to watch closely for companies borrowing heavily to fund speculative spending in the tech sector.
“We do have concerns about the possibility of an AI bubble,” Yang said. “AI is driven by real growth potential, but it’s the possibility of over-expansion via over-leveraging that concerns us.”
Taiwan sits at the center of the world’s AI supply chain, serving giants like Nvidia and Apple through chip maker TSMC, whose stock has helped drive Taiwanese markets to record highs this year.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has made that connection clear with frequent visits to the island, including a trip in June for Computex and Nvidia GTC Taipei.
TSMC said last month that customer demand remains strong and that outlooks on AI are still positive, even as it keeps an eye on rising costs for parts.
At its quarterly meeting in June, Taiwan’s central bank board decided that rising prices tied to the AI boom did not call for higher interest rates, though the vote to hold rates steady was not unanimous.
Yang said holding rates was the right call, given how much traditional industries are lagging behind the fast-growing tech sector.
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Hania Humayun
Hania joined Cryptopolitan with a long history of analyzing finance, economic trends, and prediction markets. She covered topics in emerging technology, AI, and fintech. Hania’s experiences as a licensed architect have added verve and precision to newswriting. She graduated from the National College of Arts in Lahore with an Architecture degree,
