A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan caused a flurry of activity at chip manufacturing facilities, considered the heart of the technology world. The earthquake, recorded at a depth of 72.8 kilometers, triggered an alert at the Hsinchu Science Park, home to TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer.
TSMC affected by the earthquake
While personnel were evacuated from the facilities under safety protocols, work on sensitive production lines was temporarily interrupted. Company management, after immediate inspections, determined that no structural damage had occurred to the buildings. With the activation of emergency measures, 70% of the machinery was quickly reactivated, and production capacity returned to its previous level within approximately ten hours.
This disruption at the center, where advanced chips critical to artificial intelligence technologies are produced, highlighted the risks to the global supply chain. TSMC has suffered significant economic blows from similar natural disasters in the past.
The company recorded losses of $92 million in the April 2024 earthquake and over $160 million in the first quarter of 2025 due to unusable plates. Following these financial losses, investments in seismic resilience and emergency response systems played a major role in the rapid recovery of production after the recent tremor.
It was reported that there were no casualties in this latest earthquake, and the technology giant continues its operations without significant disruption to its delivery schedules. This rapid recovery demonstrates the success of the measures taken to protect critical production processes.
