TSMC Pauses Some Taiwan Construction After Mishap Kills Four

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is suspending some construction work after an accident at one of its building sites in southern Taiwan led to the deaths of four workers.

The accident took place Tuesday during steel structure construction at TSMC’s Kaohsiung site, Nvidia Corp.’s go-to chipmaker said in a statement. The workers fell from a height while performing steel structure hoisting and installation, according to a report from the Central News Agency. A cause may have been aged bolts that broke, it said, citing a preliminary assessment by the Southern Taiwan Science Park Bureau.

TSMC said it suspended work at Kaohsiung and halted similar steel structure construction at all of its sites across Taiwan while the company works with authorities to determine the cause of the accident.

“We and our construction contractor immediately suspended related construction work at the site, and we have also suspended similar steel structure work at all our construction sites across Taiwan pending our investigation,” TSMC said in a statement.

The incident, which Taipei-based Liberty Times reported was the deadliest mishap since construction began at the Kaohsiung site, comes as TSMC ratchets up production capacity to keep up with surging demand for advanced chips needed for artificial intelligence.

The Kaohsiung complex is one of TSMC’s key leading-edge manufacturing hubs — along with the company’s facilities in Hsinchu, southwest of Taipei — with 2-nanometer processing technology needed to to manufacture high-performance chips to maximize computing power for data centers.