Foxconn is pulling out of a $20 billion joint venture in India that would have produced semiconductor and display components.
The top Apple supplier didn’t provide a reason for the breakup, but the $19.5 billion project would have been one of its largest moves outside China.
Apple has emphasized supply chain de-risking to suppliers, even as executives walk a fine line in public commentary on the Communist regime.
Lead Apple supplier and global manufacturing powerhouse Foxconn has pulled out of a $19.5 billion joint venture project with an Indian conglomerate that would have brought semiconductor and display manufacturing to the Indian state of Gujarat.
“Foxconn has determined it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta,” the Taiwan company told Reuters in a statement. The move is a significant blow to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s ambitions to transform the country into a global, high-tech manufacturing powerhouse.
American companies, Apple among them, have pushed their suppliers to diversify their supply chains beyond mainland China, as geopolitical and economic tensions mount. Foxconn has broken ground on multiple factory sites across India, although the $20 billion joint venture with Vedanta would have been one of the largest.
The U.S. government and major technology firms have started to openly identify Chinese technological advancements and manufacturing dominance as a key threat to national security. Some U.S. corporations, long the victim of Chinese state-permitted industrial espionage, are reassessing Chinese operations as part of so-called “de-risking” efforts.
