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> Roughly every five years, the cost to build a factory for making such chips doubles, and the number of companies that can do it halves.

So we may have Apple and NVidia as the only ones that can afford to build a fab. Edit, correction, Microsoft is the current number 2 company by market cap.

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None of these companies know how to build a fab. The most they could do is invest in TSMC building one as a Joint Venture.

You're kind of agreeing with me. According to the article, at some point in the future a new fab will require a joint venture between a tech giant and a chipmaker.

It's already the case.

Even one step lower in the chain, ASML sells prototypes of their new photolitho chip makers to the big chip houses years before they develop them. The chip houses understand that the first releases will require ASML engineers to babysit the new tech, patching design issues as they become visible through use.

That is a de facto joint venture.

They can't afford to tank their margins like that, investors would be rather unhappy.

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