Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 294 posts

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#111

Post by totalZero »

bmitc wrote: post #4
brookst wrote: post #2

It’s good news geopolitically, and the construction will produce a lot of jobs. But people should temper long-term job expectations. This huge of an investment in a tech where TSMC will face competition from fabs in lower-cost countries almost certainly means the company believes it can use extensive automation to avoid having labor costs sink their ability to compete on price. (Yes, there may be a window where they…

> It’s good news geopolitically I actually think the opposite. It will be good for global supply chains but not geopolitics, because it reduces the reliance on Taiwan thus opening it up for assimilation.

Absent any form of fab redundancy in the global economy, the fabs make Taiwan fragile in the eyes of the Western powers. Taiwan is safer when it is not a pressure point for the entire Western economy because it's easier to defend territory that can withstand a few hits.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#112

Post by tony_cannistra »

adam_arthur wrote: post #98
tony_cannistra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of reality. I have never heard this. Where are you reading that? Disappearing water sources are a reality. Time and time again, long pipelines like what you suggest just aren't viable. I'd suggest you enjoy some fact-based reporting on the topic: https://g…

Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain

I hate to break it to you, but your "economically illiterate people" might actually understand some fundamental social and political realities that you've not yet had the chance to reckon with. Not to mention the physical realities of water resources.

Your comparison to oil pipelines is nonsense. Where to start: privatization, a global commodity market, relative scarcity, massive extractive capex.... Sure, we built oil pipelines easily in the past. How difficult has it become? Surely the capital exists. Why don't we build more?

Nobody is talking about abandoning real estate.

The tragedy of people like you is that you provide a half-compelling distraction. People (cities/farmers/industry) need to use less water.

The longer it takes to get people to realize this, the harder it is to fix.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#113

Post by NikolaNovak »

adam_arthur wrote: post #98
tony_cannistra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have a fetishization with hyping up disappearing water sources as leading to mass forced desertions of population centers, which is not rooted in any kind of reality. I have never heard this. Where are you reading that? Disappearing water sources are a reality. Time and time again, long pipelines like what you suggest just aren't viable. I'd suggest you enjoy some fact-based reporting on the topic: https://g…

Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain

>>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability.

For oil. Water has far lower value density.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#114

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

peteradio wrote: post #37
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was conspiratorial, I’d say this serves as a excuse for building more pipelines for getting more water from other states.

What is the longest and (large enough) volume water piping system in the world? From my recollection its not long enough to significantly make inroads to another state. edit: I think I might be wrong, looks like China has done significant waterworks across their country.

Why isn't it the same as say an oil pipeline? Those can get really long.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#116

Post by duped »

_8j50 wrote: post #45

Don't these fabs need like an insane amount of water? Why would they build it of all places in arizona which as far as I know barely meets drinking water requirements (at least at some cities) and is basically mostly a desert?

Arizona paid them more in subsidies than the other states would

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#117

Post by throwaway4good »

adam_arthur wrote: post #63

Onshoring is a logical result of improved automation. When labor costs lessen, transportation and logistics become the primary concern. Wouldn’t be surprised if 100 years from now most final good assembly is done locally. Of course sometimes raw materials and inputs are more expensive to transport than the finished good, so there will always be cases where long distance transportation of finished products is still pr…

This has got nothing to do with improved automation.

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#118

Post by adam_arthur »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #112
adam_arthur wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain

I hate to break it to you, but your "economically illiterate people" might actually understand some fundamental social and political realities that you've not yet had the chance to reckon with. Not to mention the physical realities of water resources. Your comparison to oil pipelines is nonsense. Where to start: privatization, a global commodity market, relative scarcity, massive extractive capex.... Sure, we built o…

Why would we practice conservation when we can spend $30-50B in capex amortized over 50 years via marginally higher taxes on the populace with minimal opex to solve the problem permanently?

Thats why they are economically illiterate. The obvious and more cost effective choice will win in the end, and it doesn’t involve austerity and suffering and repentance for high water use

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#119

Post by adam_arthur »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #113
adam_arthur wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. The choice of abandoning trillions of real estate vs a 10s of billions infrastructure project is obvious. Article cites the cost as $14B which is effectively nothing vs the alternative. Even $100B is nothing. These two TSMC fabs are $40B alone So much fearmongering from economically illiterate people. Use your brain

>>Oil pipelines have already proven the economic viability. For oil . Water has far lower value density.

For water. Its proven we can build many thousand miles of pipeline for 10s of billions.

Which is vastly cheap enough and sufficient to solve this problem. Much cheaper than alternatives

Re: TSMC ups Arizona investment from $12B to $40B with second semi fab

#120

Post by yyyk »

bmitc wrote: post #4
brookst wrote: post #2

It’s good news geopolitically, and the construction will produce a lot of jobs. But people should temper long-term job expectations. This huge of an investment in a tech where TSMC will face competition from fabs in lower-cost countries almost certainly means the company believes it can use extensive automation to avoid having labor costs sink their ability to compete on price. (Yes, there may be a window where they…

> It’s good news geopolitically I actually think the opposite. It will be good for global supply chains but not geopolitics, because it reduces the reliance on Taiwan thus opening it up for assimilation.

It may be a useful talking point to get the public to do the right thing on Taiwan, but frankly there's no meaningful economic reliance on TSMC/Taiwan and policy makers know this.
Post reply on HN