84 M C K I N S EY Q UA RT E R LY FDI Shake-Up - - - - - - - - - - - - wind, as well as in nascent electrolytic hydrogen production are attracting roughly three-quarters of the growing total. At the same time, uncertainty around inter national trade has been weighing on sectors that are not seen as strategically important for national resilience and competitiveness. Amid an even greater global focus on future-shaping industries at the aggregate level, the overall rate of FDI announcements leveled off in 2025, after tariff and trade uncertainty spiked. In particular, while the first quarter of 2025 saw higher-than-average announcements totals, the second and third quarters saw a reversal: They were both roughly 30 percent below the annualized average measured in the preceding three years. What played out was a bifurcation of investment patterns. Future-shaping industries saw compounding growth. A wave of data center projects throughout the year continued to be pro pelled by the AI boom; and semiconductors saw a single deal in March exceeding a typical year’s worth of announcements. But outside of these two industries, announcement values fell—by as much as 50 percent in the case of energy. Below, we follow recent FDI announcement pat terns in semiconductors, AI data centers, and the EV value chain to see where the shovels may be poised to dig next. Geographic concentration can create significant vulnerabilities, and companies and countries are taking note. SEMICONDUCTORS: SHARE SHIFTING TO THE UNITED STATES The future global economy will run on leading-edge semiconductors, the most advanced chips pro duced today. Potential applications range across generative AI, robotics, defense, and many other sectors. A large language model can require hun dreds of thousands of these chips to train. Until recently, production of leading-edge logic chips was heavily concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea. In 2022, these economies were home to about 65 percent and 25 percent, respectively, of global leading-edge capacity. But geographic concentration can create significant vulnerabili ties, and companies and countries are taking note. For instance, export controls have recently been applied to semiconductor-related raw materials and manufacturing machinery, as well as the chips themselves, especially those at the leading edge. In fact, some researchers have found that export con trols target the semiconductor value chain most. Correspondingly, amid escalating geopolitical tension, semiconductor greenfield FDI announce ments have been both increasing in value and flowing among more geopolitically aligned econ omies. Since 2022, FDI announcements into semiconductors have reached $115 billion per year, a fivefold increase from the 2015-to-2019 period. Strikingly, half of this amount was focused on build ing new leading-edge facilities, which didn’t feature in the previous round of foreign investments. Against this backdrop, FDI has emerged as an engine that could transform capacity globally, par ticularly for the most advanced chips. By some estimates, the United States could become the second-largest producer of leading-edge chips by the early 2030s, home to more than 20 percent of global capacity, thanks primarily to investments from TSMC and Samsung, the leading players from Tai wan and South Korea, respectively (Exhibit 2). Early signs of FDI’s impact in the United States are already visible. At TSMC’s site in Arizona, one facility started producing leading-edge chips in high volumes in late 2024. As of January 2026, a second has completed its structural building phase and is scheduled to start production in 2027. A third is under construction.