TSMC and ByteDance - The World's Largest Foreign Investors

In 2025, multinational companies announced new foreign investments totaling over $1.3 trillion, a 2.2% increase compared to the previous year. The largest commitments focused on semiconductor plants, data centers, energy projects, and other major infrastructure developments.

Visualcapitalist.com ranks the top ten foreign investors of 2025 based on investments announced and included in "The fDi Report 2026" analysis. Only announcements regarding "greenfield" foreign direct investment (FDI) are considered; consequently, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and inter-company loans are excluded.

• Why TSMC Invested $100 Billion in Arizona

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, took the top spot in the rankings after announcing an additional $100 billion investment in its Arizona operations for 2025.

TSMC is also the largest non-U.S. company by market capitalization. Amid record profits and rising demand for chips, the company planned to use this investment to accelerate production at its facilities in the Phoenix area. Estimates suggest this expansion will create over 18,000 jobs.

TSMC initially committed in 2020 to investing approximately $12 billion to open a semiconductor plant in Arizona. These production facilities were designed to mitigate semiconductor supply chain risks by shifting a portion of production outside of Taiwan.

The company steadily increased its investments in the following years as tensions between the US and China escalated, particularly regarding advanced chip technology. TSMC plans to manufacture some of its most advanced chips in Arizona as part of a 2024 agreement with the US government.

Despite workforce challenges and higher costs, TSMC has continued to expand its investments in Arizona. Following additional commitments made in 2026, the company's total investment in the US state stands at $265 billion, making it the largest foreign investment in US history.

• Massive investments in technology

TSMC ranked far ahead of the rest, and technology companies dominated the overall list, occupying five of the top ten spots. ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, ranked second with announced investments totaling $45.1 billion. Nearly $40 billion of this amount is earmarked for plans to build a large-scale data center in Brazil-a project expected to create approximately 5,000 jobs.

Tech giants such as Alphabet ($25.1 billion) and Microsoft ($17.7 billion) have also announced significant overseas investments. For instance, Google-an Alphabet subsidiary-has pledged to invest over $5 billion in a large-scale data center complex in Belgium to meet the growing demand for Google Cloud services.

• Non-tech companies in the Top 10

Digital infrastructure has also influenced the investment priorities of companies outside the technology sector, particularly in Europe, the cited source notes.

For example, MGX Fund Management (ranked third)-a state-owned investment fund from the UAE-is focusing heavily on global artificial intelligence technologies. The company has announced investments totaling approximately $43.4 billion, including a major data center project in France aimed at creating one of the largest campuses of its kind in Europe.

Meanwhile, the Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management (ranked fourth) has also targeted the European digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence market. Brookfield has committed to investing approximately $28.2 billion in greenfield foreign direct investment in 2025, particularly in projects in France and Sweden. According to estimates, the announced investments will create approximately 4,800 jobs.

• Top 10 sectors for foreign investment in 2026

Global investors announced cross-border "greenfield" investments totaling approximately $538 billion in the first half of 2026, with artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure emerging as a major driver of capital flows, according to visualcapitalist.com, citing data from fDi Intelligence.

According to the cited source, companies committed $139.3 billion in new capital to the communications sector during the first half of 2026. This figure nearly equals the combined investment value of the next three largest sectors. The primary driver of this trend is data centers, which attracted investment commitments exceeding $131 billion. Companies are investing billions in data centers to support the continued surge of artificial intelligence. This digital infrastructure provides the computing power required to train and run large-scale AI models.

Nearly a quarter of the announced foreign direct investment in data centers stems from a single transaction. In May 2026, SoftBank committed to investing over $50 billion in data centers in France. The Japanese technology company plans to develop 3.1 gigawatts of data center capacity in the country, starting in 2031. This is set to become the largest investment of its kind in Europe. The development of artificial intelligence infrastructure is extending to the energy sector as well. Renewable energy ($73.3 billion) and fossil fuels ($44.7 billion) ranked second and third, respectively, in terms of greenfield foreign direct investment, as new data centers drive increased demand for large-scale, reliable electricity sources.