April 14 (UPI) — AI chipmaker Nvidia announced plans Monday to manufacture its NVIDIA AI supercomputers in the United States for the first time.
Nvidia added it will produce up to $500 billion of infrastructure for artificial intelligence in the United States over the next four years through its U.S.-based manufacturing partnerships.
“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,” CEO Jensen Huang stated in a blog post.
It arrived amid President Donald Trump’s push to impose tariffs on a number of friendly countries and assume trade deficits in order to pressure global companies in the Trump administration’s attempt to grow U.S. manufacturing.
Trump imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese products which threatens companies such as Apple, and a 32% tariff on products via Taiwan where Nvidia largely produces its graphics processing units.
However, the president on Friday exempted chips, smartphones, computers and other tech device components from his staggering tariffs which economists and a bipartisan contingency of lawmakers overwhelmingly predict will spike prices for U.S. consumers and possibly worsen inflation.
Rumors swirled Sunday that Trump would announce further tariffs within a week on imported semiconductors.
According to Nvidia, it commissioned more than one million square feet of new space and started production of its AI Blackwell chips in Phoenix at plants owned by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Nividia designs its GPU units but outsources chip production to its affiliated manufacturers like TSMC — one of the largest and most well-known semiconductor chip manufacturers in the world used in scores of tech products from cars to iPhones.
It added other partnerships in Arizona with Amkor and Siliconware Precision Industries for packaging and test services.
It will also build supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas with Milwaukee-based Chinese manufacturer Foxconn around the Houston area, and with Wistron near Dallas with mass production expected sometime within the next year.
Nvidia officials added they will use Nvidia tech to create “digital twin” factories to build specially automated robots.
In 2017, world-renowned consulting firm McKinsey & Co. speculated that as many as 800 million workers worldwide could lose their jobs to automated equipment by 2030.
In recent years, Taiwan Semiconductor has expanded its presence to include a second factory in a $40 billion investment with delays and a $100 billion price tag for its two Arizona factories.
Meanwhile, company officials with Nvidia declined to comment when asked if this announcement had a relationship to Trump’s inflationary tariffs.