> The main problem is that there is no profit in chip manufacturing

This isn't true. Check out the margins of TSMC, it tends to be 40% or so.

But to maintain this lead in the industry, they need to massively reinvest for the next smaller process. With that said, profits are great but they don't endure (software development is somewhat more 'sticky' especially since everyone is doing SaaS which provides more incentives for competition and many companies are growing even with covid19 changing the market landscape).