Where America fights data centers, Taiwan plants chip factories on sugar farms
Liberty Times (Sep 27 exclusive) and Taipei Times (Sep 28): Taiwan’s science council opened a one-month public comment on expanding Chiayi Science Park — about 199 hectares, mostly Taiwan Sugar farmland leases, the same cane-to-park pattern as Phases 1 and 2. Supply-chain sources say TSMC intends five more advanced packaging plants there, which would bring the Chiayi total to ten, driven by CoWoS demand from NVIDIA, AMD, and Apple. American towns fight hyperscale data centers on private land; Chiayi’s path runs through state sugar farms and a county that wants the build — not a claim that Taiwan has no NIMBY (Longtan still killed a TSMC site in 2023).
What happened
On September 27, 2026, the Chinese-language Liberty Times published an exclusive saying the National Science and Technology Council had formally solicited public feedback on further expansion of Chiayi Science Park — a notice the industry reads as the starting gun for Phase 3, or 嘉科三期. Taipei Times carried the English wrap on September 28, citing its sister paper and naming supply-chain sources for the plant-count color.
The government facts and the company-intent color need to stay on separate shelves. The council notice starts a one-month public comment period, then feasibility work, then Executive Yuan approval, then urban planning and environmental impact assessment. The Phase 3 zone is estimated at about 198.65 hectares and would lean on farmland leased from Taiwan Sugar, the same land pattern used for Phases 1 and 2. Council language frames the expansion around artificial intelligence, heterogeneous packaging, silicon photonics, high-speed networks, quantum tech, and net-zero industry — policy scaffolding, not a purchase order.
Southern Taiwan Science Park data in the Liberty Times piece puts today’s packaging footprint in plain stages. Phase 1 holds plants P1 and P2: P1 is already in mass production; P2 is installing tools. Phase 2 plans P3, P4, and P5, with P3 already under construction and the Phase 2 buildout aimed at completion by 2031. That is the shovel schedule already on the books.
The leap is the reported intent for Phase 3. Unnamed semiconductor supply-chain sources told Liberty Times that TSMC intends to add five more advanced packaging plants in the Phase 3 zone. If that plan holds, Chiayi would host ten TSMC advanced packaging plants in total — framed in the exclusive as a global packaging hub for the AI era. Treat that plant count as reported intent until TSMC or a named official confirms it. The driver named in the same reporting is roaring demand for -style advanced packaging from , , and Apple — demand that existing expansion still cannot fully close, industry observers told the papers.
Taipei Times adds nearby CapEx color: in July TSMC raised its 2026 capital-expenditure outlook to a US$60–64 billion band, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs notes a wide Taiwan fab and packaging buildout across Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Treat those as context for how large the company’s Taiwan program already is, not as audited proof of the five Phase 3 plants.
The southern twin sits one county south. In late September reporting on Kaohsiung’s Baipu Industrial Park, TSMC’s packaging validation work and OSAT adjacency were already the southern Taiwan packaging beat. Chiayi Phase 3, if it clears land process, would thicken that same corridor rather than invent a new geography. Separately, buyers are still shopping next-generation package bases — including glass substrates still stuck in qualification — which is the materials race running beside this plant CapEx story, not a substitute for it.
Why it matters
Advanced packaging is the scarce doorway between leading-edge wafers and AI racks. If Chiayi really heads toward ten TSMC packaging plants, southern Taiwan hardens as the place where Nvidia-, AMD-, and Apple-class AI silicon get their final dense assembly. That is industrial geography: land process, sugar-farm leases, EIA calendars, and tool install queues deciding how fast CoWoS-class capacity can grow.
For multipolar readers: Taiwan still owns the densest advanced-packaging queue; US, Japan, and Germany sites remain part of TSMC’s wider map, but Chiayi plus Kaohsiung Baipu is the southern twin that matters for near-term AI package scarcity. What to watch: whether the one-month comment window closes cleanly; whether feasibility and Executive Yuan steps stick to a public calendar; any named TSMC confirmation of the five Phase 3 plants; and whether Phase 2’s P3–P5 build stays on the 2031 finish aim while Phase 3 land is still in paperwork.