TSMC's plan if China invades Taiwan involves secret remote kill switches

A new report from Bloomberg has revealed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's leading semiconductor manufacturer, is prepared for China if the nation decides to take Taiwan by force.

In the event of Chinese military going boots on the ground in Taiwan, TSMC and Dutch company ASML, who makes the machines TSMC uses, have reminded their respective governments of their preparedness, as Bloomberg has learned from people "familiar with the matter" that both companies have built hardware-level kill switches into their machines that can be remotely activated.

The report states US officials approached ASML with concerns about a Chinese invasion, which ASML assured the officials that it's extremely valuable machines can be remotely disabled if required. Furthermore, the Dutch company is already running simulations of such an event to learn more about how a real-world scenario would play out if it ever occurred.

Bloomberg writes that ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, the world's most advanced chip machines, which TSMC owns more than half of the manufactured total, features a kill switch that can be remotely activated from the Netherlands. Notably, China has never been able to purchase an EUV machine from the Dutch company due to US-led export ban.