Japan will provide at least 1/3 of the funding subsidy to TSMC’s second wafer fab in Kumamoto

According to news on August 4, according to Bloomberg, Japanese House of Representatives member Akira Amari said that the Japanese government will provide most of the costs, at least one-third, to TSMC’s second wafer fab in Kumamoto.

The government has promised to cover half of the cost of the first Kumamoto factory, said Akira Amari and Yoshihiro Seki, chairman and secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party's semiconductor group.

"This is a national strategy," Alimaki said on Wednesday. "The choices we face will determine our direction in the coming decades. Will we be a supplier or a purchaser of chips? Which is better? Whatever the outcome, we There is no choice but to accept this challenge.”

Whether the government will also pay for half of the cost of TSMC's second factory will depend on what types of chips the factory will produce and how much of a broader economic impact the factory can have on the region, he said. He added that if TSMC planned to train many Japanese engineers with its own more technically advanced workers, for example, the government would provide more support.

He also said that they hope to see at least 1 trillion yen (IT House Note: currently about 50.3 billion yuan) of chip-related support in this year's additional budget, which may be confirmed by the end of the year. "In terms of chips, trillions of yen investment is the global standard," Amari said. "We will provide a large budget."

TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin said in June that the company was in discussions with Japan about subsidies for a second factory that could be located next to its Kumamoto plant.

In fact, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida clearly expressed this intention last year. If additional budget support is implemented, Japan will launch a plan to invest approximately 10 trillion yen in semiconductors within ten years.

According to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, about 1.76 trillion yen has been set aside so far for the national chip and digital strategy formulated in 2021 and revised this year, of which 1.2 trillion yen is for semiconductors and 500 billion yen for batteries and 60 billion yen for software-related projects. Japan aims to triple domestic semiconductor sales to more than 15 trillion yen by 2030.