Apple's new U.S. manufacturing push is all about securing its AI future

Apple has announced that it's committing a total of $600 billion in US investments over four years, including a new $100 billion pledge. A core part of this spending is the new American Manufacturing Program (AMP), which is designed to bring more of Apple’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the US. With the latest investment piled on, the company has committed to directly hiring 20,000 people around the country in areas such as R&D, silicon engineering, and artificial intelligence.

The program comes at a time when President Trump is pushing for more manufacturing to be moved to the United States. It’s not exactly a full-scale reshoring of manufacturing, but it could certainly give the company more political influence. Aside from more investment, Apple has formed new partnerships and expansions with companies like Corning, Coherent, and MP Materials.

With this investment, Apple is attempting to create an end-to-end silicon supply chain in the US. This involves forming partnerships at every stage of chip production. For wafers, Apple is partnered up with GlobalWafers America, for fabrication it’s working with TSMC, TI, Samsung, and Global Foundries, and for packaging, it has tapped Amkor. This supply chain is set to produce more than 19 billion chips for Apple products this year.

The partnerships are focused on cutting-edge tech, such as TSMC’s advanced process technologies in Arizona, where Apple is the first and largest customer. It’s also going to leverage Samsung’s new chip-making technology in Austin, Texas. The Lone Star State is extra lucky because it will also be the place that produces servers for Apple Intelligence, which were previously made outside the US.

Areas that will be seeing expansions to manufacturing facilities include states like Texas, Arizona, Kentucky, and New York. For example, Apple has committed $2.5 billion to produce all of the cover glass for iPhone and Apple Watch in Corning’s Harrodsburg, Kentucky, manufacturing facility.

Apple’s announcement also mentions the new Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit which will aim to help small businesses implement advanced manufacturing and AI. This will not affect Apple directly, but it will ensure that small businesses are leveraging advanced manufacturing and AI as much as possible.

Notably, the main beneficiaries of this expansion won’t be working class families who may be drawn to traditional manufacturing roles, but the middle class in R&D and engineering roles. This is quite interesting politically as President Trump has been trying to appeal to working class voters with a return of manufacturing jobs to America.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Apple has not published the financial costs of these programs for Apple or its partners which could make it hard to assess the true economic impact and who is bearing the costs.

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