By far the leading company in Taiwan, TSMC has taken such a lead over the competition that it finds itself quite alone in its sector.
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is a brand that was known only to hardware specialists - and then only to a few - ten years ago, and has gained enormously from the boom in artificial intelligence and semiconductors in general. To be perfectly honest, it may even have gained more than NVIDIA, in the sense that it's hard to see who could replace it in the next few years.
TSMC's Fab 21 site in Arizona © TMSC
Just think: today, all cutting-edge components are manufactured in TSMC factories. And when we say all, we're not just talking about Apple, AMD or Qualcomm, for example, but also Intel, which is unable to produce as well and as fast as the Taiwanese company. In fact, the only company missing from TSMC's roster is Samsung. The fact remains that today, to produce a state-of-the-art semiconductor, you have to knock on TSMC's door.
The company's success is evident in its share price, which has risen by almost 200% in the space of five years. The problem is, TSMC just can't keep up. Despite increasing production lines at its main Taiwanese plants and opening new facilities - in the USA, for example - TSMC cannot keep up with demand. The company's CEO, C.C. Wei, has admitted as much: " our production capacity is far from sufficient ", and he goes on to put forward a factor of 3 between supply and demand. In other words, it won't be long before the cost of the most cutting-edge products drops.
