On December 6, 2022, Tim Cook stood on a construction site in Phoenix, Arizona, alongside President Biden, TSMC founder Morris Chang, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. It was the tool-in ceremony for TSMC’s first Arizona fab, a moment that crystallized how central Taiwan’s semiconductor industry had become to American technology ambitions. For Cook, it was also the closest he ever got to TSMC’s leadership in 15 years as Apple’s CEO.