The Taiwan Firm That Makes the World’s Tech Run

1. “there are people definitely accumulating chips who-knows-where in the supply chain,” says Liu.

2. “we had to try hard to scout out competent technicians and workers.” Liu notes that costs in the U.S. have turned out to be “much higher” than TSMC expected.

3. It all points to a localization craze driven by politics rather than by science or business. After all, opening a fab in the U.S. affects only one small part of the manufacturing process. Today, semiconductors are typically designed in the U.S., fabricated in Taiwan or South Korea, tested and assembled in Southeast Asia, and then installed into products in China. It is already incredibly specialized: as much as TSMC dominates foundry services, only the Dutch firm ASML produces those advanced lithography machines that all its fabs rely on.

4. After all, the $100 billion investment that TSMC unveiled does not stand alone. It is combined with and augmented by the deep R&D pockets of Apple, Nvidia and all TSMC’s other close partners to create a “budget that is 100 times what you will see on their financials,” says Nenni. “It’s just impossible for any company or country to catch up to this huge ecosystem that’s moving forward like a freight train.”

5. “The U.S. should focus on their strengths: system design, AI, quantum computing, those forward-looking things,” says Liu. TSMC may already have won 2030, but the decade after is still up for grabs.