Apple is spending $275B to advance Chinese manufacturing.[0]
They can easily afford 1/10th of that to build a fab that's ready in five years right here in the US if they wanted to. (Las Vegas is ideal, no natural disasters of any kind.)
Hell, they could write a check and buy Intel outright.
Las Vegas is currently having their water coming from the Colorado River (and reservoirs fed by it) limited, along with several other states and Mexico. If I were a betting man, I'd bet it will get worse in the near future.
Getting far off topic here, but Las Vegas is one of the safest water supplies.
There is the often quoted statistic that Las Vegas gets 90% of its water from Lake Mead/Colorado River. But Las Vegas reclaims and recycles 99% of consumed water and pumps it back into the lake via the Lake Mead Wash.
Because they get 99 return-flow credits for every 100 gallons, any draw limits from the watershed will have minimal impact.
Las Vegas also has a large groundwater table that supplies 25% of its peak summer demand.
As a last resort, the Casinos will never let the city run dry. While they only consume 6-7% of the cities water, they depend on their employees being able to live in the city to keep operating.
They can easily afford 1/10th of that to build a fab that's ready in five years right here in the US if they wanted to. (Las Vegas is ideal, no natural disasters of any kind.)
Hell, they could write a check and buy Intel outright.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim...