June 9 news, according to Bloomberg, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at a hearing on the Senate Appropriations Committee that the White House is renegotiating the Science and Chip Act subsidy contract, hoping to prompt subsidized companies to invest more money in U.S. semiconductor projects.
Not long ago, TSMC, which has received a subsidy of US$6.6 billion by the US government, announced that it would increase its investment of US$100 billion on the basis of the originally promised US$65 billion in the United States, and the White House obviously hopes that other companies will follow suit.
Lutnik said at the hearing, "Are we renegotiating? Absolutely, this is for the benefit of American taxpayers. We trade the same amount for more value." He also hinted that companies that are unwilling to cooperate with the government's requirements may not be able to receive subsidies smoothly. "You will see that all contracts become more favorable; the only deals that are not reached are those that should not have been reached at all."
Lutnik believes that it is more appropriate to provide subsidies of 4% or less, better than the previous 10% subsidy, and the previous subsidy plan is too generous.
U.S. President Trump has expressed opposition to the Chip and Science Act since his campaign last year, saying that the bill is "extremely terrible" and called on Congress to repeal the Chip and Science Act. However, when the bill was passed, it had bipartisan support and could bring employment opportunities to multiple states and constituencies. Therefore, Congress has reserved the attitude of directly repealing the Chip and Science Act. At present, the US government seems to turn to using forced means to require companies to "increase more investment for every dollar of subsidy."
Lutnik also talked about the effectiveness of the US export ban on China at the meeting, saying that China cannot currently produce AI chips as TSMC has done for Nvidia, and China can only produce up to 200,000 advanced process chips for data centers and high-end smartphones. In comparison, Nvidia's AI chip shipments last year were as high as 2 million. If the United States continues to upgrade export controls on China, China will find it difficult for China to meet the huge demand for advanced process chips from domestic consumers and technology companies in the short term.
Editor: Xinzhixun-Langkejian
