News you can use
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Last call to attend Reimagining the Silicon Heartland in Columbus Ohio on May 22! Meet all your favorite CHIPS Communities United partners and staff, explore the intersections between data centers and Intel’s massive Ohio project, and learn about the impact of Big Tech on the local environment and labor market. Register today!
If you’re on the West Coast (or feel like checking out Portland, Oregon in the summer sunshine), it’s not too late to register for Toxic Roots of the Silicon Forest: People, Power, and Pollution in the Semiconductor Industry on June 3-4. The Toxic Roots conference will bring together workers, experts, environmental activists, and community leaders from across Oregon and beyond. Together, we will explore the legacy of the microchip industry, discuss its impact in our own backyard, and plant the seeds for a more equitable and sustainable future.
CCU leaders and staff will also be at the Labor Research Action Network in Atlanta on May 14, the Jobs with Justice National Conference on May 15 and 16 (also in Atlanta), the National PFAS Conference in Tucson June 8 to 10, and Labor Notes on June 12 to 14. Please look us up. We hope to connect with you at one or more of these events.
Check out this five-part training series (hosted by the Data Center Working Group, Kairos Fellowship, and Fighting Oligarchy) to support organizing and campaign efforts to stop the expansion of data centers. Here are the sessions: building winning campaigns, power analysis and strategy development, building statewide coalitions, leveraging research to follow the money, and building sustained engagement. Needless to say, many of these lessons apply to campaigns challenging semiconductor factories, too. The series will take place on Tuesdays between May 19 and June 16 from 6-8pm ET. Register here.
US Chip News
Corporate leaders want Congress to extend the bountiful investment tax credit.
We keep hearing rumors that TSMC’s investment in Arizona could be $465 billion, up from $165 that has been publicly announced.
In Arizona, developers are eyeing more of the desert near TSMC to further expand residential development.
In Indiana, SK hynix is following a pattern we’ve seen elsewhere, demanding secrecy from local government through the use of NDAs.
Speaking of which, Micron’s Boise expansion is by-passing the normal development process, skipping the usual application and engagement with city officials and instead holding a single closed-door meeting with planning officials. Unhappy neighbors have complained about the plans, but “Micron said it would not make any changes to the application based on neighbor feedback.”
Elon Musk is getting into the semiconductor business, with Intel as the foundry partner of the new Terafab project.
Industrial policy investments like the CHIPS and Science Act may be leaving black workers behind.
The untold outcomes of Biden’s industrial policy, especially for workers. This important report by Betony Jones focuses on energy policy (though some of it is relevant to the CHIPS Act).
Corporate News
Apple will buy more chips from Intel and Samsung, but TSMC will remain Apple’s top chipmaker.
Intel’s big comeback! But “the company still has a long way to go,” according to an interview with Intel’s CEO.
Here’s some corporate PR about how TSMC promotes sustainability and water reclamation.
Why did TSMC’s Arizona plant outperform its Japanese factory? Both started production at the same time, but “in 2025, TSMC Arizona posted over $500 million in profit; during the same period, the Japanese operation racked up more than $300 million in losses.” tldr: The Arizona plant is making cutting edge logic chips, while the Japanese factory is making larger, slower legacy chips.
Global Economy
Global chip sales rose 25% from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026.
Why advanced packaging could be the next phase of the AI boom.
How the Iran war threatens the AI bubble.
Taiwan: the chips chokehold that could end the world’s AI boom.
Workers at Samsung’s Korean facilities have been threatening to strike. Samsung made over $200 billion in profits last year, and workers have called for 15% of it to be shared with them as performance bonuses. Management has other ideas.
Tim Cook built Apple in China, but Beijing owns the keys. “Apple’s problem … is that it became entirely dependent on China’s goodwill.”
The Philippines joins Pax Silica.
Grab the Popcorn
Here is a cool video about what’s inside semiconductors and how they get made, featuring “the most complicated machine humanity has ever built.” It’s very technical, but I think you’ll like it.
A nice video on how the AI boom is stretching the semiconductor supply chain to the limit.
Here’s a trailer for She, a film about the exploitation of Vietnamese electronics workers. The director is working on a sequel about women in Korea’s semiconductor industry. (LMK if you find a way to screen the whole film.)
And a short film by a Taiwanese filmmaker about the environmental implications of TSMC’s Arizona expansion. (Again, I haven’t figured out how to watch the full thing, but I’ll post a link if one of you sleuths can find it.)
Study hall
Extra credit if you read the following articles and reports!
Manufacturing still matters, says a new report from the Roosevelt Institute. “Despite employing less than 10 percent of workers, the US manufacturing sector is still the second largest in the world, the second most important in domestic output, the leading funder of research and development (R&D), the top export sector, and the second largest employer of engineers. Manufacturing contributes more than other sectors on a per-job basis to value added (76 percent greater), exports (688 percent greater), and R&D spending (1,288 percent greater). Manufacturing has a particularly large employment multiplier: Every manufacturing job created supports four times as many jobs in communities and supply chains as do jobs created in other sectors. And while the so-called manufacturing wage premium has gone down (along with the prices of manufactured goods) over the globalization era, manufacturing jobs continue to pay more than other jobs on average, and are more likely to be unionized than jobs in other private-sector industries.”
We’re overdue for a labor-centered critique of the Abundance argument. Here’s the Roosevelt Institute about why we need an Abundance agenda that works for workers. And why prevailing wages matter for the Abundance agenda.
“The last thing the Democrats need is more policy plans” like the CHIPS and Science Act, says one critic. “The problem is that policy-as-politics doesn’t work. Parties can, and historically have, forged stronger, more sustainable connections with voters through other means.”
Want to know more about industrial policy? In recent weeks, multiple articles discussing and critiquing the what, why, how, and when of national industrial policy were posted, including by Rogé Karma, “A Pillar of the Economics Establishment Admits That It Was Wrong“, The Atlantic; Noahpinion, “Updated thoughts on industrial policy“; Factory Settings, “How Uncertainty Could Kill US Industrial Policy“; BCG, “The AI-First Economic Affairs Department“; and Lars Frølund and Fiona Murray, “How Strategic Investment Is Redefining Economic Statecraft” and Glenn Hubbard, “Adam Smith on the Midterms,” both in Project Syndicate. In addition, the NSF just published NSF Economic Impacts: Literature Review.
Hope to see you soon!
