July 11, 2023: Lead Apple supplier and international manufacturing powerhouse Foxconn have pulled out of a $19.5 billion joint venture project with Indian partnership Vedanta 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 Taiwanese company stated.

The move is a powerful blow to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitions to transform the country into a global, high-tech manufacturing powerhouse.

Foxconn said the judgment was by “mutual agreement” but that it remained “confident” about India’s semiconductor ambitions.

Among American companies, Apple has pushed its suppliers to diversify its 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 breakup comes as U.S. and Chinese leaders and business executives work through an uneasy and often treacherous path, with both incorporating the needle between acknowledging their codependence and harshly criticizing their counterparts.

The U.S. state and major technology firms have started to openly identify Chinese technological advancements and manufacturing dominance as a critical 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” actions.

Foxconn continues to build additional factories across India, which include one in Telangana and one in Bengaluru.