Isn't that what Apple did originally with TSMC? Payed for capacity rollout?
However, I'm talking about booking wafers from a fab that hasn't started and won't make a single wafer 3 years from now. The scale is different. Imagine Nvidia, Apple, Google, AMD, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon telling Wall Street in their earnings report that they sent TSMC $5 billion each this quarter and won't receive a single wafer for another 3 years from the investment. I fully expect this to happen soon. I'm almost certain that you'll hear in the upcoming earnings reports that big tech sent Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix billions in advance payment to secure memory supply years from now. I think this is likely the same for chip fab capacity soon.
And this would be no different than investing billions in R&D (Ex. Meta and AR) for future payouts.
Or, Apple buying 10000 advance CNC machines for their manufacturer. In this case timeline for future payout is perhaps much shorter but the pertinent point will be Apple invested in Capex upfront.