[frakkingcylons]

I think it's the last thing they would do themselves. Setting up and operating their own TSMC-level fabs would cost Apple:

* tens of billions of dollars

* at least 5 years of time

* most of all: immense effort and focus that could be used elsewhere

[erichocean]

Apple is spending $275B to advance Chinese manufacturing.[0]

They can easily afford 1/10th of that to build a fab that's ready in five years right here in the US if they wanted to. (Las Vegas is ideal, no natural disasters of any kind.)

Hell, they could write a check and buy Intel outright.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim...

[cronix]

Las Vegas is currently having their water coming from the Colorado River (and reservoirs fed by it) limited, along with several other states and Mexico. If I were a betting man, I'd bet it will get worse in the near future.

https://www.ktnv.com/news/u-s-department-of-interior-declare...

[mike_d]

Getting far off topic here, but Las Vegas is one of the safest water supplies.

There is the often quoted statistic that Las Vegas gets 90% of its water from Lake Mead/Colorado River. But Las Vegas reclaims and recycles 99% of consumed water and pumps it back into the lake via the Lake Mead Wash.

Because they get 99 return-flow credits for every 100 gallons, any draw limits from the watershed will have minimal impact.

Las Vegas also has a large groundwater table that supplies 25% of its peak summer demand.

As a last resort, the Casinos will never let the city run dry. While they only consume 6-7% of the cities water, they depend on their employees being able to live in the city to keep operating.

[seb1204]

I was going to mention the water shortage too. Is water not an important resource for chip making?