Tim Cook has shown a pretty serious willingness to work with the CCP in the past, and their human rights track record right now is pretty bad. What makes you think either he wouldn't do so after an invasion or that China would do anything to disrupt one of the biggest prices and competitive advantages in the world (TSMC)?
The US Government would clearly engage in economic warfare, at the very least, with China if they were to invade Taiwan. Likely access to cutting edge chips would go with it... assuming China is occupying Taiwan.
Yes, this would lower QoL pretty significantly for both countries.
Isn't USA in the process of basically relocating TSMC to Arizona for that reason? And it's not for iPhones. It's because USA military can't risk having the chip supply cut off in wartime.
That's a big no. What's actually happening is that TSMC is building a new factory in Arizona, including training a brand new US workforce. It remains to be seen whether it can even be done. Toyota famously failed with a similar attempt in Fremont, California.
It's a question of whether TSMC is successful because of some sort of strategy that is compatible with American work culture, or do the actual Taiwanese workers play a significant part in their success? Unanswered thus far.
That's incredibly smart, when world powers rely on you to deliver cutting edge hardware either directly or by proxy, you can bet they'll also have a word or two to say about any plans China might have.
So Apple wont be buying the Arizona chips since they’ll always be behind. Was Tim Cook saying all those big words in the fab opening ceremony just for show?
prob not his worse case scenario :)