The Philippine government said American chip maker Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) will invest around US$1 billion for the expansion of its facilities in Clark, Pampanga and Baguio City. Accordingly, state media Philippine News Agency (PNA) said the announcement came during the President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s meeting with members of the United States (US)-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Council at Malacañan Palace last week.

“There will be huge opportunities as Texas Instruments gear toward making the investment, which would increase capacity in the region, having in mind the shortage of chips in the global economy,” said Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy Garafil as quoted by PNA.

Spurs Economic Growth

Garafil said TI will likely submit in two weeks an application on the expansion of its Clark and Baguio City sites. Moreover, TI’s investment plans are in line with the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 signed into law by US President Joe Biden last year.

Marcos welcomed TI’s investment plans, saying the expansion would help spur economic growth in the Philippines. Furthermore, Marcos said the Philippines has good potential, considering its workforce that is accustomed to working for foreign corporations.

In addition, Marcos said the Philippines has undertaken a “very comprehensive” program of upskilling and reskilling its workers to be able to take advantage of the new niches in the labor demand and the labor market.

“These (are) areas and sectors in the economy that we would like to be involved in,” he said, as quoted by the PCO. “And we have a great deal of [dependence] already… of our exports. We do not see why we should not further support and enhance the sector of the economy because it has (done) well.”

Expanding Presence in Southeast Asia

Recently, Texas Instruments announced plans to expand its internal manufacturing footprint in Malaysia. Accordingly, the expansion covers two new assembly and test factories in Kuala Lumpur and Melaka.

Together, these new investments will support TI’s plan to bring 90% of its assembly and test operations internal by 2030 to have greater control of supply.

Founded in 1930, the Dallas-headquartered TI is a global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, tests, and sells analog and embedded processing chips.

The company has approximately 80,000 products that help over 100,000 customers efficiently manage power, accurately sense and transmit data. Furthermore, provide the core control or processing in their designs, going into markets such as industrial, automotive, personal electronics, communications equipment and enterprise systems.

Moreover, TI has 15 manufacturing sites worldwide which produce tens of billions of chips every year. To date, it employs around 14,000 workers in the US, 17,000 in the Asia-Pacific, and 2,000 in Europe.