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There was a second where I thought that Apple was using a literal plant to make chips. Sometimes I am not smart.

It's the way that reads! I did the same thing haha. Oh neat new plant chip technology. Huh?! Lmao

How close are they to reducing the need for human assembly line workers and automation taking over a substantial part of assembly line?

iPhones will soon cost $16,000

I believe, because of COVID policies in China, the supply chains are disrupted there So Apple is trying to find alternatives suppliers. Their needs are huge!!! The rest of the article is politics !!

Do you remember a few years ago when Apple CEO told President Obama that "those jobs are gone?" Turns out they weren't.

So, Elon Musk tried to create a robotic factory, spent a few billion figuring out what everyone else has figured out, that it doesn't work. There's even a video floating around of him saying that he underestimated the value of the human touch.

This makes me a little uneasy. It's almost as if they are expecting trouble.

Planters makes chips? Out of peanut or potatoes? Silicon you say? Doesn't sound appetizing.

I really don't know how to convert 3 years into meters.

We have too little water to be building chip plants out here

Well, that last sentiment surely didn't last. At least with twitter, he's opting for nobody at all.

Well, we don't do that here. You can however convert 3 years into the appropriate number of quarters, eights, and 16ths.

We may need to stop giving a bunch of cheap water to the alfalfa farms. I don't know how much water the chip plants use, but I would imagine it is less than the farms.

https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threatening-water-supply-in-phoenix/

The alfalfa crops are also absurd, especially the ones that go straight to the Saudis, who drained their own aquifers exporting wheat.

How does sourcing chips that were never made in China move the supply chain away from China?

You say potato, and I say silicon fabrication facility.

Not really. Why make something overseas when you can do it in your own backyard for the same or less, while improving availability for your products? China's lockdowns are hampering Apple right now big time. And not having a communist government impede your business is always preferable.

Thanks Joe Biden!

So Apple now is gonna get chips NOT from china, therefore the supply chain for them has shifted away FROM china.

What if we roasted it in honey?

They were gone without a chip ban.

Most jobs in the industry are going away. The factory that builds the PS5 has 5 floor workers.

When the factories are super autonomous it doesn't matter where they are built.

More jobs in shipping these products to the rest of the world than building them these days.

Depends on product I suppose.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/sony-factory-japan-playstation-4-30-seconds/

I feel like this is to avoid tariffs, right? Maybe an unforeseen benefit of the CHIPS Act?

But you are always pretty

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I disagree that "it doesn't matter where they are built". Even at heavily autonomous factories, skilled workers will be needed to maintain the machines, program the computers, maintain the facility, etc. Not to mention the logistics of shipping in materials, warehousing, and shipping out finished products.

It's for diversification of supply. I'm sure there may be other benefits but that is the main reason.

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I wonder why Foxconn’s Zhengzhou iPhone factory employs 200K workers…

I’m Arizona, can confirm we have silicon chip plants growing in the wild.

Is it because Tim got roasted by Ricky Gervais

Way more important than that is general safety of business. You can buy skilled workers if you have none (and China does not even have that many people on the top, they have more of a high skilled low and medium jobs workforce rather than high skilled job one). Either way you can not buy safe environment for your business where ruling dictator just does not wake up one day and steal all your stuff.

Most chip plants recycle/reuse/reclaim almost all their water. Intel has always had that in the US, been doing that since the 90s in Arizona, and around 97% of water is fully reused.

Another aspect is it industry is built in the US and Arizona makes sense from environmental impacts (no earthquakes, hurricanes, winter etc) then the industry will make sure more water makes it to Arizona.

In a way having production in the desert there will lead to water innovation, like pipelines/geoengineering/solar stills/desalination/innovations on recycling more water and many other things.

Necessity drives innovation.

They are robots.

This is absolute nonsense. The only thing He admitted is that it was rushed. Not that it was wrong. Also it is outdated already. Tesla's factories are way more productive than other car maker companies. And it is not even close. Every company strives to remove low skilled workers. It is just about calculations on return of interest. Not some absurd "human touch". Everyone on engineering position in the industry will tell you that.

Because if you pay them less than what’s worth an assembly robot and it’s maintenance it’s still cheaper to hire people

Same reason the sony factories used to employ more people.

The automation doesn't destroy 200,000 jobs overnight. The factories you are referencing look a lot different post covid versus iphone 7. There are some design failures that are specific to apple products limiting automation for a couple of more years.

The technology for AI/ML digital twinning(nvidia omniverse isaac) and fine robot control is only months old not years.

"More jobs in shipping these products to the rest of the world than building them these days."

Maintaining a series of machines is a lot less laborious. My example in the sony factory, there are only 4 employees that handle those roles. Compared to the 1,000s that you would expect. There's just not a lot of roles to carry on.

Think about the PS2, that required chip designers(Which is now AMD outsourced), more marketers, every part of the supply chain was larger included used games sales. Sony had 2x the employees in 2009 than it did in 2022. And half the revenue.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/PlayStation-s-secret-weapon-a-nearly-all-automated-factory

They were not from China in the first place. There is hence no difference or shift.

It's moreso because the us is blocking chip exports and imports from China. I.e the US democratic government is impeding on their business.

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Apple's chips are manufactured by TSMC which is a Taiwanese company. The plant in Arizona is a plant being built by TSMC in the US.

There's actually a thing called metric time https://minkukel.com/en/clocks/metric-clock/

Only took them a few decades

Yes, but how LONG it's going to be depends on what speed he is traveling at.

It's probably easier to say 3 years. Or, we can just say 3 light years, because that's a distance and a time.

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I thought it also included India

With some of the worst in quality control.

Tesla - the most ironic name ever for an Elon Musk company.

I blame your parents.

It's not just about jobs it's about national security and balance of trade.

I am lost? Is child slavery allowed in Arizona?

Look up their nand chips.

But yeah the article is meaningless since they never made their main processor in China in the first place

He spent billions learning what GM learned and told everyone about in the 80s. You can’t build a lights out car plant.