Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, ???) is an important and long-term partner, Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger said yesterday upon arriving in Taiwan on a trip that is widely believed to be a quest to secure the Hsinchu-based chipmaker as a supplier of advanced 3-nanometer chips. The move would seem to backtrack Gelsinger’s remarks that Taiwan is geopolitically unsafe, and that the US should not overly depend on Asia for semiconductors, but should invest more in the country’s homegrown chipmakers. With the construction of a new fabrication factory in Phoenix, Arizona — its first major expansion overseas —...