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A worker moves a wafer bank at NXP semiconductors computer chip fabrication plant in Nijmegen, Netherlands March 14, 2024. 

Piroschka Van De Wouw | Reuters

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.-backed Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation and Dutch chip designer and manufacturer NXP Semiconductors will build a $7.8 billion wafer manufacturing plant in Singapore. 

Vanguard will have 60% stake in the joint venture — VisionPower Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — while NXP will hold 40%, according to a joint statement released Wednesday.  

The VSMC plant will produce wafers for the automotive, industrial, consumer and mobile device markets, the companies said. TSMC will license the underlying manufacturing technologies required for the project to VSMC. 

The new plant, whose construction is expected to start in the second half of 2024, with wafers to be shipped to customers in 2027, is expected to create about 1,500 jobs in Singapore, the joint statement said. 

Wafers are a thin slice of semiconductor material used to make microchips.

NXP will invest $1.6 billion in the Singapore plant while Vanguard plans to invest $2.4 billion, the statement said. The firms will also provide an additional $1.9 billion to support the long-term capacity of the plant, with the remaining funding provided by third parties.

Global distribution of semiconductor supply will enable more predictability - Strategist

“NXP continues to take proactive actions to ensure it has a manufacturing base which provides competitive cost, supply control and geographic resilience to support our long-term growth objectives,” said Kurt Sievers, president and CEO at NXP.

Vanguard, which made a $236 million acquisition of a less advanced wafer facility in Singapore from New York-based contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries in 2019, said the new plant will help it diversify its manufacturing operations.

Singapore has attracted investments from several semiconductor companies, aided by its business-friendly environment.

GlobalFoundries opened a $4 billion chip fabrication plant in Singapore last year, with its president lauding the government’s industrial policies. In 2022 Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp invested $5 billion into its Singapore microchip factory.

Neighbour Malaysia has also emerged as a hotspot for semiconductor companies, with investments from American chip giants Intel and GlobalFoundries. Other companies have also laid out plans to start operations in the country. 

TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, has been building new plants in countries like Japan and the U.S. as its customers seek to de-risk from Taiwan amid intensifying U.S.-China tensions.  Last year, NXP invested in TSMC’s first chip plant in Dresden, Germany, TSMC’s first plant in Europe.

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Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops $4 trillion market cap

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Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops  trillion market cap

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.

The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.

Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.

“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.

At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.

“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.

Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.

WATCH: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

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Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

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Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

Elon Musk (L) & Don Lemon

Reuters (L) | Getty Images (R)

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon‘s lawsuit against tech billionaire Elon Musk and his social network X over the cancellation of their partnership can proceed to trial, a San Francisco judge ruled this week.

Musk’s team had tried to get the case moved to a Texas court and tried to convince the judge to strike the complaint altogether.

Attorneys for Musk and X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In an order Tuesday, Judge Harold Kahn said Lemon and his attorneys plausibly alleged, among other claims, that X and Musk had committed “fraud by false promise” and that there was “an implied contract” between them.

Lemon filed the suit in August 2024 after X canceled a partnership with the broadcast journalist a few hours after he taped a tense interview with Musk, who owns X. The interview preceded a planned premiere of Lemon’s new show on Musk’s social network.

During the interview, Lemon pressed Musk on several contentious topics he had posted about or amplified on X. Musk had boosted the so-called “great replacement theory,” and other bigoted tropes and falsehoods, including posts that claimed there was a “Hispanic invasion” of immigrants to the U.S.

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Lemon also pressed Musk about content moderation on X, and a reported surge in antisemitic content on the platform that occurred after Musk acquired it as Twitter in a $44 billion leveraged buyout in late 2022.

Musk made sweeping changes after taking over the site, firing huge numbers of personnel and reversing account bans for users who had been booted from the platform after posting hate speech or inciting violence.

Musk, who characterized himself as a free speech “absolutist” also restored the account of President Donald Trump. The site had permanently banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Lemon’s case against Musk and X Corp. is in San Francisco Superior Court. A date has not been set for the trial.

Musk and X have faced a litany of other lawsuits over non-payment to vendors and over failure to provide severance as promised to laid-off employees from Twitter.

Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 following reports that he mistreated coworkers and made sexist remarks on-air, including about politician Nikki Haley. Lemon later apologized for the Haley comments.

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Bitcoin sets another record above $113,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

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Bitcoin sets another record above 3,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

Nurphoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin climbed to new all-time high on Thursday, building on its previous record reached just a day earlier, as investors jumped into risk assets and liquidated short positions.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 2% at $113,459.16. Earlier, it rose as high as $113,863.18.

On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin saw about $318 million in short liquidations across centralized exchanges in a 24 hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.

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