MANILA – American microprocessors manufacturer Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) will invest around USD1 billion for the expansion of its facilities in Clark, Pampanga and Baguio City, Malacañang announced Thursday.

TI’s investment commitments were announced during President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s meeting with members of the United States (US)-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Council at Malacañan Palace in Manila on Wednesday, Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a statement.

Citing the announcement made by US officials, Garafil said TI is expected to submit in two weeks an application on the expansion of its Clark and Baguio City sites which may reach USD1 billion Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises threshold.

“There will be huge opportunities as Texas Instruments gear toward making the investment, which would increase capacity in the region, having in mind the shortage of chips in the global economy,” Garafil said.

Garafil said TI’s investment plans are in line with the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 signed into law by US President Joe Biden last year.

She noted that the US law is aimed at building and making historic investments that will poise American workers, communities and businesses to “win the race for the 21st century.”

“The law is seen to strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence,” Garafil said.

Marcos welcomed TI’s investment plans, saying the expansion would help spur economic growth in the Philippines.

He said the Philippines has good potential, considering its workforce that is accustomed to working for foreign corporations.

He added that the Philippines has undertaken a “very comprehensive” program of upskilling and reskilling its workers to be able to take advantage of the new niches in the labor demand and the labor market.

“These (are) areas and sectors in the economy that we would like to be involved in,” he said, as quoted by the PCO. “And we have a great deal of [dependence] already… of our exports. We do not see why we should not further support and enhance the sector of the economy because it has (done) well.”

TI was founded in 1930 and is currently based in Dallas, Texas. It is a global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, tests and sells analog and embedded processing chips.

The company has approximately 80,000 products that help over 100,000 customers efficiently manage power, accurately sense and transmit data and provide the core control or processing in their designs, going into markets such as industrial, automotive, personal electronics, communications equipment and enterprise systems.

TI has 15 manufacturing sites worldwide which produce tens of billions of chips every year.

To date, it employs around 14,000 workers in the US, 17,000 in the Asia-Pacific, and 2,000 in Europe. (PNA)