Wistron Corp. opened a $700 million plant outside Fort Worth, Texas, on Wednesday to assemble Nvidia Corp.'s most advanced artificial-intelligence servers, sending the Taiwanese contractor's Taipei-listed shares up 9.7% and adding a fresh Asian anchor to President Trump's drive to relocate the semiconductor supply chain to American soil.

The 324,000-square-foot site, which Wistron calls its D1 AI smart facility, is already producing Nvidia's GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Superchip and will later build the Vera Rubin Superchip that will power the next generation of AI data centers. It arrived the same week Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract chipmaker, said its aggressive U.S. buildout was squeezing margins even as second-quarter profit surged 77.4%.

Together, the two disclosures capture how Trump's tariff-backed campaign to reshore advanced chip production — anchored by TSMC's $200 billion in U.S. commitments, including last week's $100 billion advanced-manufacturing pledge — is reshaping Asia's electronics supply chain one plant at a time.

Fort Worth footprint

Wistron said the Texas site will ramp up assembly and testing of Nvidia AI servers that plug into the chipmaker's DSX data-center architecture. Chairman Simon Lin called the plant central to the company's next phase. "In the next couple of years, this location will be one of the most important, as we build AI infrastructure here in the United States," Lin said in a statement.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang framed the opening as part of a wider industrial pivot. "Demand for AI factories—the engine of this next industrial revolution—is incredible, and they must be produced everywhere," Huang said. Nvidia's partner network now spans 43 U.S. states and includes Wistron, TSMC and Foxconn, together contributing an estimated $485 billion to U.S. gross domestic product in 2026, the company said.

TSMC's margin math

Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs on companies that manufacture outside the U.S. since retaking office in 2025, and TSMC has responded with the largest set of pledges by any foreign chipmaker. Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told analysts Thursday that second-quarter gross margin came in ahead of guidance but was offset by dilution from overseas fabs, and said margins would be further diluted over the next "several years" as those projects ramp up.

The company forecasts overseas-fab dilution of 2% to 3% in early stages, widening to 3% to 4% later, Huang said. TSMC's second-quarter gross margin was 67.7%, up from 66.2% in the first quarter. The chipmaker is set to raise prices for both advanced and mature production by up to 10% in 2027, Nikkei reported Tuesday; TSMC declined to comment on pricing.

Morningstar senior equity analyst Phelix Lee estimates TSMC's U.S.-fabricated chips cost 20% to 50% more than those made in Taiwan, depending on subsidies and tax credits, and expects customers to absorb most of the increase.

Washington's line

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a statement, said the TSMC pledge would "create tens of thousands of American jobs and bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to America." A White House spokesperson told CNBC that trillions of dollars in chip investment were "a result of President Trump's trade and economic policy."

Absorbing the cost

TSMC's dominance in the leading-edge node market gives it room to pass costs along. "What helps TSMC is lack of any material competition," said Gaurav Gupta, a vice president analyst at Gartner, noting that many customers face U.S. government mandates to buy domestically produced chips. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, added: "This is a margin difference TSMC can afford because of its very high overall margins."

Whether Washington's leverage lasts is another question. "Customers have increasingly sought geographical diversification after Covid disrupted the global supply chain," Lee said. "We expect made-in-US pressure to persist beyond Trump, although it is less clear how carrot-and-stick will be distributed."

For now, the pressure and the plants are arriving together. Wistron's Fort Worth line is running. TSMC's Arizona expansion is under construction. And the bill, in margin dilution and higher chip prices, is being written into the industry's next multiyear cycle.