Nvidia announced plans today to manufacture AI chips and build complete supercomputers on US soil for the first time, commissioning over one million square feet of manufacturing space across Arizona and Texas. The politically timed move comes amid rising US-China tensions and the Trump administration’s push for domestic manufacturing.
Nvidia’s announcement comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration’s chaotic rollout of new tariffs and just two days after the administration’s contradictory messages on electronic component exemptions.
On Friday night, the US Customs and Border Protection posted a bulletin exempting electronics including smartphones, computers, and semiconductors from Trump’s steep reciprocal tariffs. But by Sunday, Trump and his commerce secretary Howard Lutnick contradicted this move, claiming the exemptions were only temporary and that electronics would face new “semiconductor tariffs” in the coming months.
Nvidia says it has already begun producing its Blackwell chips at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) facilities in Phoenix. Until now, the company’s AI chips have been manufactured exclusively in Taiwan, presenting geopolitical risks to the supply chain.
The company is also setting up supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas—partnering with Foxconn in Houston and Wistron in Dallas, with mass production expected to ramp up within 12 to 15 months.
“The engines of the world’s AI infrastructure are being built in the United States for the first time,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO, in a news release. “Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for AI chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain, and boosts our resiliency.”
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For chip packaging and testing operations, Nvidia is collaborating with Amkor and SPIL in Arizona. The supply chain for building the kinds of advanced GPUs that accelerate training and running AI models requires advanced manufacturing, packaging, and testing technologies that each partner works together to provide.
The development also comes days after Nvidia reportedly avoided export controls on its H20 chip by striking a domestic manufacturing deal with the Trump administration. The H20 is Nvidia’s most powerful AI chip that can still be legally exported to China under current US restrictions; it’s designed with reduced specifications to comply with export controls while maintaining compatibility with Nvidia’s CUDA platform. According to reporting from TechCrunch and NPR, the H20, which can still be exported to China, was spared after Huang promised to invest capital into components for US-based AI data centers.
