WSJ Reports
AI Chip Manufacturing Plants and More Planned Across the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on December 4 (local time) that Masayoshi Son, Chairman of Japan’s SoftBank Group, is fleshing out a plan to establish "Trump Industrial Complexes" across the United States using the $550 billion in cash investments that Japan has pledged to the U.S.
According to sources, over the past several months, Chairman Son has discussed this initiative with officials from the White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce. While details may change, the plan reportedly involves building industrial parks on federally owned land, which would include fiber-optic cables, data center equipment, and eventually factories for mass-producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
This initiative, known internally at SoftBank as "Project Crystal Land," has reportedly undergone significant changes over the past six months.
According to the WSJ, in meetings that began this spring, Son first proposed to senior U.S. government officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a plan to build an industrial city worth $1 trillion in the Arizona desert. This would be an American version of the mega-cluster in Shenzhen, China. It is reported that Son personally explained the plan to President Trump last summer.
Subsequently, sources said that the blueprint for the project shifted toward building "Trump Industrial Complexes" on federally owned land. The funding will come from the $550 billion in new U.S.-bound investments pledged by the Japanese government.
The WSJ reported that it remains uncertain whether Son’s vision will materialize, even in a revised form.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
