(Nov 2): On a typically muggy Taipei day, dozens of eager Taiwanese investors packed into a conference room. Their latest obsession: the sprawling suburbs of the Arizona desert, more than 7,000 miles from the dense neighbourhoods and narrow alleys of the island metropolis.

Family office executives and real estate investors sat through presentations on tax regulations, the rental housing market and even cultural differences they might find in north Phoenix, the new home of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's (TSMC) 2,000-acre campus. 

During a break, two men brainstormed possible ventures. Dormitories for workers from TSMC suppliers? Or maybe spas and karaoke bars that might feel familiar to new Taiwanese immigrants?

TSMC’s US$265 billion buildout — the biggest foreign investment in US history, and in an industry that American policymakers would desperately like to repatriate — has turned the scrubby north Phoenix suburbs into a hotbed of real estate investment. Rents are rising, construction sites are everywhere, and the job market is booming. It’s also brought new conflicts with local unions and residents, and the current peace feels fragile: TSMC has so far avoided federal anti-immigration enforcement actions, but other big tech companies and Asian manufacturers have not.  

This might still be a honeymoon period, said Wei Li, an Arizona State University professor who studies migration. “Because TSMC has the bilateral and bipartisan support and is treated as a showcase, everything has to do well,” she said. But “the overall environment impacts every single institution. TSMC cannot escape everything.”

Since it picked Phoenix for its first American advanced manufacturing site in 2020, TSMC has completed one chipmaking fabrication plant. Two more will be operational by the end of the decade. Earlier this year, the company announced a further US$100 billion expansion, bringing its total Arizona investment to US$265 billion. TSMC is also considering building new facilities in Texas, Bloomberg reported in October.

Its suppliers have followed the company to the suburbs around northwest Phoenix. The area now leads the broader metro region in demand for warehouses and manufacturing facilities. Vacancies fell to 8% in June from 16% a year earlier, compared with a two percentage-point drop for the broader city, according to data from Colliers International.

The area’s getting an additional boost from Taiwanese investors who see the TSMC buildout as a powerful market signal. Since 2021, they’ve  added another US$500 million, on par with those from Canada, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Local real estate brokers say they’re fielding midnight phone calls from Asian investors. Their common first question about any tract: “How close is it to TSMC?”

“The Taiwanese who have seen the effect of TSMC are significantly more bullish than the people who have historically operated in Arizona or the US,” said Kevin Calihan, an executive vice president at CBRE Group Inc based in Phoenix. “It’s kind of catching up, but the Taiwanese investors are way, way ahead.”

Starlux and China Airlines now run regularly scheduled commercial nonstop flights between Taipei and Phoenix. This year, the Taiwanese government opened an economic and cultural office — a de facto consulate — in the state capital, a counterpart to the trade office Arizona set up in Taiwan in 2023. 

It’s hard to overstate the importance of TSMC to the self-governed island of 23 million people. The nearly US$2 trillion chipmaker makes up about 40% of Taiwan's benchmark stock index — the next-biggest company is one-tenth the size. TSMC shares have climbed more than 50% this year.

But TSMC is more than just an enormous global tech company. Because of its strategic importance to the worldwide chip market, many Taiwanese see it as a bulwark against potential invasion or military aggression. China considers Taiwan to be part of the People’s Republic, despite the fact that the Communist Party never ruled the island. President Xi Jinping has long aspired to bring it under Chinese control, a proposition Taipei firmly rejects. 

Between the company’s economic and symbolic importance, its plans to build fabrication plants in Phoenix have been reason enough for some wealthy Taiwanese to invest.

“Taiwanese are so familiar with TSMC,” said Hai Chien Wang, chief executive officer of Taicoon Property Partners, a Washington DC-based firm. “They see that wherever TSMC puts their manufacturing plant, the proximate real estate market just excels and outperforms other submarkets” in Taiwan.

Backed by Taiwanese tech and real estate executives, Taicoon outbid an established local developer, agreeing to pay US$88 million for two plots roughly 10 minutes from TSMC’s campus. Its initial plans call for a US$1 billion mixed-use development that would include housing for workers drawn by TSMC and satellite enterprises. It also imagines a multi-floor mall with local Taiwanese favourites like Din Tai Fung and Eslite Bookstore. TRK Corp, a Taiwanese entertainment company, is also talking with  Taicoon about setting up batting cages, an Asian-style spa and family entertainment facilities at the upcoming project.

TSMC has hired some 3,500 people for its Arizona facilities and plans to add 2,500 more. The overall surge is driving up demand for skilled workers and places to house them. North Gateway and Desert View had lagged other Phoenix suburbs before the chipmaker’s arrival. They’ve since begun to catch up, with home values up about 53% on average over the last six years, compared with 42% citywide, according to data from Zillow.

Even in the post-Covid pullback, houses closer to the chipmaking facilities held their value better. Major homebuilders including Taylor Morrison Communities Inc and Lennar Corp are expanding across Phoenix. One of the areas west of TSMC anticipates 3,300 new homes, the most development since the early 2000s, according to Belfiore Analytics, a housing research firm based in Phoenix. 

The year after the chipmaker’s initial investment, Howard Hughes took over a long-delayed development now known as Teravalis, a 37,000-acre master-planned community west of Phoenix. It will take decades, but eventually the area may accommodate more than 110,000 homes and 60 million sq ft of retail space. The Pershing Square-backed developer was already bullish on the area, chief executive officer David O’Reilly said, but TSMC “is the inflection point that changed the timeline on commercial development.” 

Many of those jobs are, at least for now, filled by Taiwanese workers on visas sponsored by TSMC, which has said the Phoenix labour market can’t yet supply the specialized skills it needs. The company has clashed with local unions, and its employment practices are the subject of a class-action discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee who alleges the company favours East Asian workers.

The company declined to comment on pending litigation. “TSMC believes strongly in the value of a diverse workforce, and we hire and promote without regard to gender, religion, race, nationality, or political affiliation because we respect differences, and believe that equal employment opportunities strengthen our competitiveness,” a spokesperson said. 

TSMC says many of the Taiwanese employees are in the US on temporary assignment, and it is actively recruiting from universities across the US and local semiconductor training programmes. But job training takes time. Last month, the administration indefinitely suspended several big tech companies from a programme used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. Arizona State University was also named alongside eight other universities in a visa fraud investigation based on its relatively high number of foreign graduate students.

The university’s hiring process is “in complete compliance with existing United States policy and law,” an ASU spokesperson said in a statement. In partnership with TSMC, the Tempe, Arizona-based school has launched a programme to train semiconductor technicians, with courses offered in the Phoenix area.  

Overseas buyers are unfazed, said Nancy Tseng who runs Funwoo, a property agency that markets US homes to Taiwanese buyers. Her clients aren’t especially familiar with Phoenix, she said, but they’re replicating a strategy that worked in Taiwan. When TSMC started expanding its production facilities in the southern city of Tainan, home price appreciation outpaced the rest of the island. People who “bought in Tainan made money,” she said. “They had a successful experience. Now they feel that they can follow them to Phoenix too.”

Meanwhile, local institutions are preparing for a workforce that increasingly has roots on both sides of the Pacific. Deer Valley Unified School District now serves hundreds of students from Taiwanese families. The rapid growth might eventually require new schools and changes to district boundaries.

“In 20 years, this will be the largest school district in Arizona,” district superintendent Curtis Finch said. “It's a new injection of people from all around the world and we celebrate all cultures and students."

Between TSMC’s own expansion and the knock-on demands, the inevitable conflicts are beginning to flare. Land for new development is becoming scarce, constrained by rules governing Arizona’s groundwater and sales of state-owned land. 

The tension is particularly visible at NorthPark, one of the area’s largest planned developments. PulteGroup was pushing for approval for thousands of new homes south of Loop 303, the highway that separates residential areas from industrial facilities. In late 2025, TSMC said it too would like to buy some of that land.

Despite hundreds of public comments objecting to any rezoning, the city approved the NorthPark development. TSMC then bought roughly 900 acres. The number of planned homes fell by about 20%. 

Local residents are now adjusting to a future that brings the TSMC fabs closer to their backyards, replacing  hiking and biking trails lined with cacti. They also worry about increased demand on an already constrained water supply, and what an influx of new houses will do to the values of existing homes. 

“Every road around here is ripped up. The traffic is exponentially worse, it’s turned up a notch since TSMC construction started,” said Jim Umlauf, who’s lived in the area for two decades. He and his family say they’re planning to move soon.

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