Apple on Wednesday unveiled its largest move yet to bring critical chip manufacturing home, announcing a multiyear agreement worth more than $30 billion with Broadcom to design and produce more than 15 billion wireless connectivity chips made in the United States. The chips will go into Apple products ranging from the iPhone to the Apple Watch, according to the companies. Broadcom shares rose in premarket trading after the announcement.
The scale of the deal is what separates it from Apple’s earlier supply-chain gestures. Previous commitments centered on assembling finished products or adding a single component line. This one covers an entire family of radio-frequency components and wireless connectivity silicon, the parts that manage Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular signals in every Apple device, and it puts those parts on a U.S. manufacturing track.
Apple said the partnership will support hundreds of jobs across Broadcom’s U.S. facilities, with engineering and manufacturing work spread across multiple states. The company has not disclosed the exact production timeline or which facilities will carry the load, but people familiar with the plan said output would ramp in stages over the term of the agreement.
The agreement extends a strategy Apple has pursued for more than a decade. The company designed its first in-house processor for the iPhone in 2010 and completed the transition of its Mac line to homegrown M-series chips by 2023, moves that cut its dependence on Intel and Qualcomm and gave it control over performance and power. Connectivity silicon was the last major component family still sourced almost entirely from outside suppliers, and the Broadcom deal is aimed squarely at that gap.
The deal fits a pattern Apple has been building for two years. In February 2025 the company pledged to invest more than $500 billion in U.S. operations over four years, a response to tariff pressure and to Washington’s insistence that critical technology be made on American soil. That pledge included a new factory in Houston and expanded data-center capacity, and it came alongside Apple’s first in-house cellular modem, which debuted in early 2025 and began replacing chips from Qualcomm.
Broadcom has been Apple’s partner on wireless components for years, supplying the radio-frequency filters and connectivity silicon that sit inside iPhones. What has changed is the geography and the ambition. Under the new agreement, more of that work moves to U.S. fabs, and the two companies will co-design the chips rather than Apple simply buying off-the-shelf parts, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
The economics are complicated by tariffs. U.S. import duties on chips assembled abroad have pushed Apple to absorb costs or pass them to consumers, and executives have said repeatedly that domestic production is the only durable answer. Analysts estimate that reshoring wireless components is more expensive than importing them in the near term, but that the calculus shifts once tariffs, logistics, and supply-chain insurance are included.
The announcement also signals where Apple’s hardware strategy is headed. Apple wants the same control over the radios in its devices that it has over their processors, people familiar with its thinking said, and co-designing with Broadcom is the first step toward that end. The company has a long history of pulling component design in-house once it proves it can, a pattern that should concern every remaining outside supplier.
For Broadcom, the deal locks in its most important customer for years to come. Apple is Broadcom’s largest source of revenue, and the multiyear agreement gives the company a visible pipeline of work at a time when its AI chip business is growing but its wireless division faces questions about how long Apple will keep buying. Broadcom’s chief executive has said the company’s relationship with Apple remains foundational, and this deal is the strongest possible confirmation.
The broader industry is moving in the same direction. The CHIPS Act, passed in 2022, channeled billions into U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, and companies from TSMC to Intel have built or expanded American fabs. Apple’s commitments have become a private-sector complement to that program, giving the government tangible proof that domestic chip production can attract the largest buyers in the world. TSMC already builds Apple’s processors at its Arizona fab, and analysts expect that relationship to deepen.
Questions remain about execution. U.S. chip packaging capacity, a critical step for advanced components, is still thin compared with Asia, and skilled semiconductor labor remains scarce. Apple and Broadcom declined to say how they would address those constraints, though people familiar with the program said both companies are working with state governments on workforce training.
What is clear is the direction: the most valuable company in the world is committing tens of billions of dollars to American chipmaking, and it is doing it with a partner that has the fabs and the relationship to deliver. For suppliers in Asia, the message is that Apple’s sourcing decisions are becoming political as well as commercial. For Washington, it is proof that the reshoring push has found its biggest customer yet.
