Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is the world’s leading contract semiconductor manufacturer and a linchpin of the global AI supply chain. Founded in 1987 by Morris Chang, TSMC pioneered the “pure-play foundry” model—focusing solely on manufacturing chips designed by other companies. This approach allowed it to become the fabrication partner for the most advanced technology firms in the world.
In the AI era, TSMC is indispensable. The company manufactures cutting-edge chips for industry leaders including Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm, producing the GPUs, CPUs, and custom AI accelerators that power everything from smartphones to frontier AI models. Its mastery of advanced process nodes—notably 5nm, 3nm, and the upcoming 2nm—makes it the only company capable of mass-producing the chips needed to train and deploy the largest AI systems.
TSMC’s role extends beyond fabrication. The company invests heavily in packaging technologies such as CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate), which are critical for AI workloads that demand massive memory bandwidth and parallel processing. These innovations allow chips like Nvidia’s H100 and upcoming B100 GPUs to reach the performance required for training frontier-scale AI models.
Geopolitically, TSMC holds a unique and precarious position. Its dominance—producing over 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors—makes it a strategic asset not only for Taiwan but for the global economy. Governments in the U.S., Europe, and Japan are investing heavily in onshore semiconductor capacity to reduce reliance on TSMC, but as of 2025, the company remains unmatched in scale, expertise, and efficiency.
By 2025, TSMC had firmly established itself as the world’s AI chip foundry, quietly powering nearly every major breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Under the leadership of CEO C.C. Wei, the company continues to push the limits of semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring that the world’s most advanced AI models have the hardware they need to exist.
