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Title: SoftBank's Son Pitches $1 Trillion Arizona AI Hub

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/20/2212...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: SoftBank Group founder
Masayoshi Son is envisaging setting up a $1 trillion industrial complex in
Arizona that will build robots and artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News
reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Son is seeking to
team up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co for the project, which is
aimed at bringing back high-end tech manufacturing to the U.S. and to create
a version of China's vast manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, the report said.
SoftBank officials have spoken with U.S. federal and state government
officials to discuss possible tax breaks for companies building factories or
otherwise investing in the industrial park, including talks with U.S.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the report said. SoftBank is keen to
have TSMC involved in the project, codenamed Project Crystal Land, but it is
not clear in what capacity, the report said. It is also not clear the
Taiwanese company would be interested, it said. TSMC is already building
chipmaking factories in the U.S. with a planned investment of $165 billion.
Son is also sounding out interest among tech companies including Samsung
Electronics, the report said. The plans are preliminary and feasibility
depends on support from the Trump administration and state officials, it
said. A commitment of $1 trillion would be double that of the $500 billion
"Stargate" project which seeks to build out data centre capacity across the
U.S., with funding from SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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