Just days after TSMC was reported to be in talks with Washington over a planned fab expansion in the Middle East, company CEO C.C. Wei has quashed those rumors at the company's annual shareholders meeting. As noted by Reuters' Wen-Yee Lee on X, Wei said the company had no plans to set up fabs in the Middle East. He also addressed the issue of tariff impact, but said that while TSMC had some exposure to waning demand, AI demand was consistently outpacing supply.
Wei's comments on the Middle East follow a Bloomberg report that claimed TSMC was evaluating the possibility of opening a chip fab in the UAE. It was claimed TSMC had met with U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and a state-owned investment firm several times. The fab would have reportedly been the size of Fab 21 in Arizona.
