Pat Gelsinger, former chief executive officer (CEO) of Intel, expressed a pessimistic view regarding the decision of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to invest $100 billion (around 146 trillion won) in the United States. He claimed that TSMC's large-scale investment would not significantly aid the U.S. in regaining global leadership in semiconductor manufacturing.
In an interview with Financial Times (FT) on the 27th, Gelsinger noted, "The U.S. cannot regain semiconductor leadership if research and development (R&D) is not conducted in the U.S." He further stated, "All of TSMC's R&D activities are carried out in Taiwan, and they have not announced plans to bring that to the U.S."
He added, "The U.S. cannot have semiconductor leadership without designing next-generation transistor technology in the U.S." However, he noted, "The tariff policy of U.S. President Donald Trump will gradually help the U.S. by providing many incentives for semiconductor manufacturers like TSMC to build facilities in the country."
Gelsinger led Intel, a prominent U.S. semiconductor company, but resigned at the end of last year under pressure from the board as management difficulties persisted. He is now an executive at Playground Global, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm specializing in investment in technology areas such as quantum computing and new semiconductor manufacturing.
Meanwhile, regarding DeepSeek, which surprised the industry and investors earlier this year with low-cost technology, Gelsinger assessed, "It was not a major innovation but rather good engineering. It wasn't a major breakthrough." He added, "AI is fascinating but too expensive," stating that it is necessary to radically reduce inference expenses for it to be applicable in all aspects of humanity.