Thanks to technological advancements in Taiwan which appear to have kept damage and casualties relatively low.
$Micron Technology(MU)$ presence In is large in Taiwan but it hasn't been too adversely affected by Tuesday's earthquake and all employees are safe and facilities were not extensively damaged. At this stage the impact appears minimal.
Source: Bloomberg
Taiwan is the leading producer of the most advanced semiconductors in the world, including the processors at the heart of the latest iPhones and the Nvidia graphics chips that train AI models including OpenAI’s ChatGPT. TSMC has become the tech industry’s linchpin because it’s the most advanced in producing complex chips. Taiwan is the source of an estimated 80% to 90% of the highest-end chips — there is effectively no substitute. Jan-Peter Kleinhans, director of the technology and geopolitics project at Berlin-based think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, has called Taiwan “potentially the most critical single point of failure” in the semiconductor industry.
Taiwan’s biggest chipmaker said late Wednesday that it had brought 70% to 80% of machinery back online within 10 hours after the earthquake hit. Its most expensive gear is extreme ultraviolet machines from ASML Holding NV, which are used to engineer processors for the latest iPhones and Nvidia chips for training AI models like ChatGPT.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the leading producer of advanced chips for Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp., said it would resume production less than 24 hours after evacuating staff and halting operations. The company said there has been no damage to its most critical chip-making equipment.
Technological advancements in Taiwan appear to have kept damage and casualties relatively low.
The smaller United Microelectronics Corp. also said it would restart normal operations and shipments, and that the quake had not had any major impact on operations. UMC had halted some machinery at some plants and evacuated certain facilities at its hubs in the cites of Hsinchu and Tainan.
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