Taiwanese MediaTek in talks with TSMC to produce chips in US: Report

ISTANBUL

Taiwan's MediaTek, the world's leading mobile chip developer in terms of shipments, is in talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) to manufacture some of its chips in the US, Nikkei Asia reported Monday.

MediaTek Corporate Vice President JC Hsu stated that, while the strategy is not yet finalized, it may include chips for "sensitive" applications or automotive use.

"We are preparing to potentially put some of our chips into production in Arizona later," Hsu said on Monday.

"For example, for certain automotive chips or those used in more sensitive applications, some US customers prefer to localize production in the US. They also consider potential issues related to semiconductor tariffs. So we are doing some preparation work, but we have not yet finalized a plan," he noted.

Recently, chip giants AMD, Apple, and Nvidia agreed to work with TSMC to produce chips in the US.

Separately, MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9500, its newest flagship 5G chipset for agentic AI in smartphones. It is made in Taiwan utilizing the 3-nanometer chip manufacturing process developed by TSMC.

According to Hsu, the most significant innovation of the latest chipset is its ability to perform several functionalities that previously required significant cloud computing resources directly on the device.

The chip maker showcased a number of on-device capabilities on Monday, such as the ability to instantly create high-resolution images from text prompts and summarize lengthy and complex papers.