TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — US chip investment is projected to surpass China, Taiwan, and South Korea by 2027, driven by Washington’s push to localize semiconductor production, Nikkei Asia reported Wednesday.

The US will see a surge in spending on fabrication plants and advanced chipmaking equipment through 2030, according to a forecast by industry group Semi. The push will be supported by government incentives targeting logic and memory chip production.

US investment from 2027 to 2030 could reach NT$4.82 trillion (US$158 billion), a scale of growth not seen elsewhere, said Tseng Jui-yu (曾瑞榆), Semi’s senior director of market intelligence.

“The US is likely to outpace the rest of the world in terms of growth based on confirmed semiconductor manufacturing commitments we have seen so far,” Tseng said at the Semicon West trade event in Phoenix. He added the scale of government-backed projects makes it likely the US will also outspend rivals in the coming decade.

Semi’s report also showed that global spending on equipment for chip plants producing 12-inch wafers will reach NT$11.4 trillion between 2026 and 2028. This year’s figure will surpass NT$3 trillion for the first time, marking a milestone for post-pandemic expansion.

Industry analysts say the spending surge reflects confidence that AI-driven chip demand will persist. Since ChatGPT’s release in 2022, global data center and edge computing demand has soared, fueling orders for AI processors and advanced packaging technologies.

Major chipmakers are responding with record investments in US facilities. TSMC has pledged NT$5 trillion for multiple sites while Samsung is spending over NT$1.22 trillion in Texas. US memory giant Micron Technology is investing NT$6.1 trillion in projects across Idaho, New York, and Virginia.

With these commitments, the US is expected to surpass Japan in chip production equipment spending by 2028. Semi projects US investment in chipmaking tools at NT$1.83 trillion from 2026 to 2028.

China will remain the largest buyer of chip equipment with an estimated NT$2.87 trillion in spending from 2026 to 2028. However, most of its new fabs will focus on mature nodes, as US export restrictions limit access to technologies used for high-end processors.

South Korea and Taiwan are expected to invest NT$2.6 trillion and NT$2.3 trillion, respectively, over the same three-year span. Europe and the Middle East together are expected to spend NT$427 billion while Southeast Asia will invest about NT$366 billion.

The outlook also reflects recent developments among AI leaders. OpenAI announced a multiyear deal with AMD to purchase hundreds of thousands of AI chips equivalent to six gigawatts of capacity starting in late 2026. The deal follows a similar arrangement with Nvidia for at least 10 gigawatts of high-performance systems.

Analysts expect contract chipmakers like Intel to expand aggressively to meet these orders. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said at Semicon West that the company plans to triple down on its foundry business despite recent production setbacks.

“As AI chips become more complicated, advanced packaging becomes the bottleneck, and then capacity constraint,” he said. “How to really scale them to meet the requirement, I think, is a tremendous opportunity for Intel.”