In April, TSMC was supplied with $6.6 billion in direct CHIPS Act moneying to “support TSMC’s investment of more than $65 billion in three greenfield leading-edge fabs in Phoenix, Arizona, which will manufacture the world’s most advanced semiconductors,” the Department of Commerce stated.

These financial investments are essential to the Biden-Harris administration’s objective of enhancing “economic and national security by providing a reliable domestic supply of the chips that will underpin the future economy, powering the AI boom and other fast-growing industries like consumer electronics, automotive, Internet of Things, and high-performance computing,” the department kept in mind. And in specific, the financing will assist America “maintain our competitive edge” in expert system, the department stated.

It likely would not make good sense to prop TSMC approximately assist the United States “onshore the critical hardware manufacturing capabilities that underpin AI’s deep language learning algorithms and inferencing techniques,” to then restrict access to US-made tech. TSMC’s Arizona fabs are expected to support business like Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm and allow them to “compete effectively,” the Department of Commerce stated.

Presently, it’s uncertain where the United States probe into TSMC will go or whether a destructive finding might possibly affect TSMC’s CHIPS financing.

Last fall, the Department of Commerce released a last guideline, however, developed to “prevent CHIPS funds from being used to directly or indirectly benefit foreign countries of concern,” such as China.

If the United States thought that TSMC was assisting Huawei’s AI chip production, the business might be viewed as preventing CHIPS guardrails restricting TSMC from “knowingly engaging in any joint research or technology licensing effort with a foreign entity of concern that relates to a technology or product that raises national security concerns.”

Breaking this “technology clawback” arrangement of the last guideline threats “the full amount” of CHIPS Act financing being “recovered” by the Department of Commerce. That result appears not likely, however, considered that TSMC has actually been granted more financing than any other recipient apart from Intel.

The Department of Commerce decreased Ars’ demand to discuss whether TSMC’s CHIPS Act financing might be affected by their reported probe.