TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — MediaTek is in discussions with TSMC to produce some chips in the US, potentially at Arizona facilities, Nikkei Asia reported Tuesday.

The company has not finalized plans, but some chips for automotive and other sensitive applications could be manufactured in the US, MediaTek Corporate VP Hsu Ching-chuan (徐敬全) said. Local production would address US customer preferences and potential semiconductor tariff issues.

Top chipmakers like Nvidia, Apple, and AMD have already committed to US-based TSMC production, reflecting a broader industry shift.

Meanwhile, MediaTek on Monday unveiled its latest flagship 5G chipset, Dimensity 9500, built in Taiwan using TSMC’s 3-nanometer process. Hsu said the chip brings cloud-level AI performance directly to smartphones.

The chip can summarize long documents, generate high-resolution images from text prompts, and run graphics-intensive games previously restricted to consoles, he added.

MediaTek President Chen Kuan-chou (陳冠州) said agentic AI features, like automated reminders from photos of receipts, could arrive on phones within two to three years. The company is also exploring chips for robots and drones, while its automotive chips are already used by at least nine leading global carmakers.

MediaTek is one of the world’s largest fabless chip designers and the largest outside the US, counting Amazon, Google, and Xiaomi among its clients. Hsu warned that smartphone market growth this year and next is expected to be mild, projecting only flat demand.

The company plans to ship a next-generation chipset using TSMC’s 2-nm process by the end of 2026, signaling continued investment in cutting-edge AI and semiconductor technology.