Good Morning,

So Earnings have started and the semiconductor boom seems to have accelerated further on the public markets. This prolonged Semiconductor surge is indicative of demand that might transition us into a Machine Economy. This is the hardware and these are global supply-chains that make it all happen.

Major winners so far this year include: , , , , - honestly the way HBM chip have sured in revenue from SK Hynix to Micro to Samsung is just incredible.

New AI Winners are essentially Semiconductor Names

TSMC and ASML Earnings

Read TSMC Earnings

• TSMC posted a 58% profit jump, driven by strong AI chip demand.

• TSMC said advanced chips accounted for about 75% of total wafer revenue in the quarter.

• TSMC’s Net Margins seem to be increasing:

• TSMC: Revenue: 1.134 trillion new Taiwan dollars ($35 billion), vs. NT$1.127 trillion expected.

• TSMC posts 35% jump in revenue to new record high

• TSMC forecast full-year 2026 revenue growth of more than 30% year over year in U.S. dollar terms.

The Rise of “Mini-Hsinchu” is Significant now in Arizona

I don’t have to tell you that for a huge company that size, 30% is a lot and almost unheard of pre AI boom. Kind of hard to fully appreciate, also how much they are extending their Fabs in Arizona. As of April 2026, TSMC’s expansion in Arizona has grown far beyond its original 2020 scope, evolving into a massive manufacturing hub often referred to as a "Mini-Hsinchu" (named after their primary science park in Taiwan).

The Trump Administration have made a lot of questionable decisions but brining TSMC over so aggressively is one of the big untold stories in Tech. Currently estimated at US$165 billion, a massive jump from the initial $12 billion announced years ago. The Silicon Shield has been nearly entirely stripped from Taiwan by the Americans.

• TSMC projected second-quarter (2Q) revenue of $39 billion to $40.2 billion, representing a 10% sequential increase.

ASML Earnings - Sales to China in Decline

ASML increased positive guidance where ASML said it now sees 2026 net sales to be between 36 billion euros and 40 billion euros, compared to a previous forecast of 34 billion euros to 39 billion euros.

While ASML has never been allowed to sell EUV machines to China, it has long sold its lower-end deep ultraviolet, or DUV, chipmaking machines there.

Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers proposed a bill that would cut off ASML’s sale of DUV machines to Chinese chip companies and impact its already shrinking sales there. That law still needs to work its way through the U.S. legislative process. System sales to China fell to 19% of overall sales in the first quarter, compared to 36% in the December quarter.

• Net sales: 8.8 billion euros ($10.4 billion) versus 8.5 billion euros expected

• Net profit: 2.8 billion euros versus 2.5 billion euros expected

Revenue growth at ASML has been inconsistent reflecting geopolitics and some turbulence but still strong since 2020:

We as usual, have a lot to catch up on. I’m going to focus more on bullets from Semi Twitter than external links and reads today. Who are Taiwan’s Big 6 AI server firms you may ask? You’ve heard of Foxconn perhaps but the others?

The “Taiwan Big6”

Taiwan’s Big 6 Revenue in March, 2026:

• Foxconn NT$803.7 billion, up 45.6% year-on-year

• Quanta NT$362.8 billion, +88.4%

• Wistron NT$333.0 billion +117.7%

• Wiwynn NT$98.6 billion, +13.9%

• Inventec NT$87.6 billion, +47.1%

• Gigabyte NT$39.0 billion, +74.8%

This surge is driven by massive infrastructure spending from "Big Tech" hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google) and the rollout of next-generation rack systems like Nvidia’s GB300.

In the first quarter of 2026, the leading manufacturers generated combined revenues exceeding NT$2 trillion (~$63 billion USD).

By Size

1. Foxconn (Hon Hai)

2. Wistron

3. Quanta

4. Wiwynn

5. Compal

6. Inventec

It’s not just TSMC and its ecosystem around here, it’s so much more now. Also with Micron building here.

If we exclude Foxconn, you can see the growth of these Taiwanese AI Server firms very clearly since 2022:

Taiwan-6 Revenue Growth Since 2022

I don’t have to tell you that countries most involved in the supply-chain are seeing their stock markets surge like Taiwan, South Korea and even to some extent Japan. I imagine you’ve never heard of some of Taiwan’s top semiconductor firms:

How the Taiwan-6 are going against “seasonal norms” is highly unusual in 2026: The March surge changes the trajectory:

Thank you for sticking around as a paying reader, one of my goals for the second half of 2026 is to up my cadence of issues. My only issue is the Semiconductor industry is a bit more slowly moving in terms of the news-cycle. I also want to focus a bit more on info that is relevant to potential investor audiences.

One last point of news that I found interesting, Cerebras filed for IPO on Friday.

Read the S-1

• You can also read my note about it here.

This articles basically gives you a sweeping view of the latest Semiconductor news from the point of view of Taiwan and TSMC especially. Congrats to Taiwan for over-taking the stock market size of the U.K.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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Good Morning,

Let’s try to summarize the latest Semiconductor News of the last few weeks. Nvidia’s Earnings were as triumphant as usual and Broadcom’s Q1 2026 earnings (reported March 4, 2026) were widely considered a “beat and raise” performance, driven almost entirely by the explosive demand for AI infrastructure. Demand for GPUs and the push for more datacenter capacity is as frantic as ever.

The February 25th Earnings of Nvidia, was easily one of its best ever and entering the realm of numbers hard to quantify for the average onlooker or even investor:

Record-Breaking Revenue: NVIDIA reported a massive $68.1 billion in quarterly revenue, a 73% increase year-over-year. This pushed its total fiscal year 2026 revenue to a record $215.9 billion, up 65% from the previous year. Meanwhile Broadcom’s AI Semiconductor Revenue was up 106% YOY to $8.4 Bn.

Surging Demand for AI Chips (Nvidia’s Earnings)

• Revenue in the data center business climbed 75% from a year earlier to $62.3 billion.

• I might sound repetitive to try to quantify the beat: Nvidia’s total revenue for the quarter climbed 73% from $39.3 billion a year earlier.

• As the demand for ASICs improves in 2026 and 2027 due to capacity issues, Alphabet is expected to make more revenue with its own chips its Ironwood 7th gen YPUs.

• This demand for compute in the age of inference is also way more expensive for the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, likely eating into their margins. We will know more when they go public in a few months in the second half of 2026.

• The BigTech capex explosion in 2026 is a further acceleration from previous increases and putting pressure on bottlenecks like TSMC and the HBM providers.

• Data center revenue came in at $62.3 billion for the quarter, ahead of expectations for $60.69 billion, according to StreetAccount.

• Nvidia said revenue for the fiscal first quarter will be $78 billion, plus or minus 2%. Nvidia is certainly executing well.

ASML Diversifying

Based on recent reports from early 2026, ASML is expanding its focus beyond its traditional, near-monopoly position in Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into several key, high-growth areas to support the AI demand.

1. Advanced Packaging Tools for AI Chips: ASML is moving into the market for tools that stack and connect multiple specialized chips.

2. Next gen Business: High-NA EUV (The Next Big Machine).

3. ASML has officially added Hyper-NA to its long-term roadmap (targeted for around 2030)

4. AI-Driven Metrology and Inspection, e.g. XT:260 Scanning Tool.

Nvidia linked to TSMC is a huge Bottleneck

Nvidia officially became TSMC’s #1 customer in 2025, toppling Apple for the first time in over a decade, as AI continues to change everything. Nvidia accounted for 19% of TSMC’s revenue, NT$726.97 billion (US$23.4 billion), more than twice the NT$352.27 billion from 2024.

With Nvidia building an HQ in Taiwan, or even a couple, it’s seriously interesting.

GTC is already right around the corner Nvidia’s big conference which will tell us a lot more about the next era of GPUs.

China Still so Far Beyond in Semiconductors

Top Chinese semiconductor executives have called for a ​coordinated national effort to develop operational lithography systems during the 2026-2030 period, underlining Beijing's push ‌for greater technological self-reliance.

As the likes of Nvidia, TSMC and ASML increase their R&D and Capex, it’s difficult for China to make progress fast enough to catch up. China simply might not have the talent, capital and capability of catching up to global leading companies. Certainly not anytime soon.

Power on: ⚡

AI data centers projected to consume ~25% of U.S. electricity by 2030

The U.S. electricity power bottleneck is about to get really in the later 2020s. President Trump announced that major AI companies—including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI—signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge at the White House on March 5, 2026.

The pledge requires these firms to fully fund new power plants, grid upgrades, and infrastructure for their AI data centers without passing costs to American households.

This aims to keep electricity prices down—or even lower them—while supporting U.S. AI leadership. But is it a pledge BigTech will keep?

OpenAI’s Major Deal with AMD

As you might have heard, it’s a very big deal. Basically AMD and OpenAI have entered a multi-year strategic partnership to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of AI computing capacity, a deal expected to generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD. As part of this landmark agreement, OpenAI will use AMD’s next-generation Instinct MI450 GPUs starting in 2026 and has been granted warrants to acquire up to a 10% stake in AMD based on hitting specific deployment milestones.

As the pie keeps growing, so does AMD’s small place in it:

• 2020: $10B revenue, ~$1.4B operating profit

• 2025: $35B revenue, ~$3.7B operating income

• 2028E: $85B revenue, ~$28B operating income

Alphabet’s share of the AI chip market is expected to grow in the 2026 to 2030 period with its own TPUs and the increased demand for them (ASICs in general).

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• Foxconn (Taiwan) is confident on its Nvidia Vera Rubin-related market share and shipment volumes, media report, citing Young Liu, chairman of the world’s biggest AI server maker. “We are deeply involved in early-stage development and new products (NPI) with our customers,” he said, adding AI demand is so strong,

• Toyota supplier Denso makes bid to acquire chipmaker Rohm (Japan) for up to $8bn. Denso, the world’s leading automotive parts supplier and a key pillar of the Toyota Group, has made a massive $8.3 billion (1.3 trillion yen) bid to acquire the Japanese chipmaker Rohm. Rohm is a Kyoto-based semiconductor manufacturer known for its expertise in power management chips and Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology.

• Taiwan is becoming South Korea’s top market for memory chip export growth as TSMC packages South Korean HBM memory chips with Nvidia GPUs before shipping them to the US, media report. Taiwan accounted for 28.6% of all South Korean chip exports last year, up from 6% in 2020, a total US$27.08 billion.

  

Samsung (In Feb, 2026) becomes the first Korean company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization.

This Newsletter is decidedly Taiwan and TSMC centric, since it’s curated from analysts here and my own various sources.

Read in Full

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It’s been a while since we reported on the Semiconductor News and trends. Welcome to 2026. The new day this Newsletter goes out will be on Fridays, hopefully aiming for for a 9 to 11AM time (Eastern Standard Time) Email send. Which gives me the entire day in East Asia to work on it and add little details I find relevant.

I’m in Taiwan and my eyes are often gravitating back to TSMC. Not just by proximity but by the strength of their corporate updates. The U.S. has lowered Taiwan’s tariffs which is a big deal. In return, Taiwan is commiing $250 billion to U.S. investment as part of a trade agreement.

It’s clear the U.S. is working very closely with TSMC and Taiwan now. The U.S. lowering tariffs on Taiwanese imports to 15% from 20%, and removing them altogether on other products, such as generic pharmaceuticals and aircraft components. The U.S. keeps ramping up weapons sales to Taiwan as well. The U.S. recently approved its largest-ever arms sale to Taiwan, an $11.1 billion package including HIMARS launchers, ATACMS missiles, howitzers, and drones. The invasion and blockade watch really starts July, 2027 essentially just 18 months from now.

So essentially TSMC said advanced chips measuring 7-nanometer or smaller made up 77% of total wafer revenue during the quarter, as demand from AI servers remains strong. Their lead in this domain keeps growing with the ability to increases prices due to over-demand.

TSMC also said it’s raising its expected capital expenditure for 2026, indicating that demand for artificial intelligence remains high this year. TSMC’s capex is indeed getting pretty heavyweight. The primary takeaway is a 27–37% year-over-year increase in spending for 2026.

TSMC’s Capex is Entering BigTech Levels

TSMC’s Investment in Arizona Adding up

TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three fabs in Arizona, with the first having started commercial production in the fourth quarter of 2024. The chipmaker has also pledged to invest an additional US$100 billion to build three more fabs, two IC assembly plants and a research and development center.

TSMC Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang said the firm would continue to ramp up its investments in Arizona.

TSMC has quickly become the Most Important Company in the world in the mid 2020s.

More or less the choke point for the AI bubble, if you think about it.

Nvidia isn’t just tethered to TSMC, the U.S. AI strategy of AI Infrastructure is tethered to Taiwan’s entire supply chain. Nobody is more important from a U.S. national defense standpoint than Taiwan’s talent that enables TSMC and those Arizona Fabs to run.

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TSMC, The world’s largest contract chipmaker has now posted year-over-year profit growth for eight consecutive quarters.

In the Earnings call TSMC executives guided revenue for the current quarter to hit between $34.6 billion and $35.8 billion, up 4% sequentially, or up 38% year-over-year at the midpoint. Taiwanese talent at this firm are carrying the AI world on their backs, let’s not pretend otherwise. 🇹🇼 🏯 (A country that’s more different in basic values from China as New Zealanders are to Australia or Canadians are to Americans I might add). Even more startling Taiwan is a super-aged population, so its young people are that much more key.

How can an island of just 23.4 million manage this? It’s an incredible story. History is on the side of genius.

Read more

Good Morning,

This is going to be a long one. As I wanted to include Nvidia Earnings tidbits.

Let’s get you caught up on some of the East Asia centric Semiconductor News. The tremor of the AI bubble before Nvidia earnings has hit, and we await the Gods with bated breath. This is an AI boom and it’s 2025, a vision where Nvidia could hit $6 Trillion next year in market cap feels like a dream. 🌈

A Dream where Qualcomm will make its own AI Chip, Qualcomm said that both the AI200, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack. Arm unveiled plans to acquire AI networking chipmaker DreamBig Semiconductor for US$265 million and what of its AI chip plans? Softank sold all of its shares in Nvidia to fuel one of the biggest customers of Nvidia. It’s all so particular to the elevated context of Tech Optimism we find ourselves in. Suddenly the Semiconductor and AI chip industry is interesting, beyond interesting.

TSMC, the main chipmaker to AI leader Nvidia Corp., posted a 16.9% rise in sales for October, the slowest pace since February 2024. But can we read too much into it? Predicated by the likes of (I remember, at least). Substrate coming out of stealth and making bold claims was even more surprising with a fair bit of skepticism. If you were groomed by Peter Thiel, my default is skeptical. There’s a creepy side to all of this. Maybe Vikram Sekar would know if it’s feasible:

How Feasible is Substrate really?

Vik's Newsletter

An In-Depth Look at the Viability of X-rays as an Alternative to EUV Lithography

Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only deep-dive edition 🔒 of my weekly newsletter. Each week, I help investors, professionals and students stay up-to-date on complex topics, and navigate the semiconductor industry…

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6 months ago · 35 likes · Vikram Sekar

When do shareholders in U.S. Capitalism not view huge increases in AI capex without ROI as a great signals for the future? Is the response to Meta’s Q3 2025 Earnings honestly the first sign of this? The AI capex that is the dominant trend of the 2020s. Part of the vision that fuels the dream? Don’t tell me you’re going to disrupt ASML or TSMC or both, I’m not having it. But to meet capacity, I would do anything. Meta, Amazon and now even Anthropic are. Mind the stairs on your way up Anthropic who are making $50 Billion AI Infrastructure plans.

As Neo Clouds correct on the stock market after going up over 200% in most cases, when will the bubble hit the road? Not for a few more years they say. Anthropic serves more than 300,000 business customers, and our number of large accounts—customers that each represent over $100,000 in run-rate revenue—has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year. I estimate they will overtake OpenAI in ARR by early 2027.

AMD Pitches Super Powers and Hyper Growth Ahead ⚡

AMD’s deal with OpenAI might be rocket fuel for the Nvidia competitor in AI chips and Intel competitors stealing their marketshare. Advanced Micro Devices reported fiscal third-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations and Lisa Su sounds like she knows what she’s down (another Taiwanese-American).

• The AMD CEO predicts the company will capture double-digit share of the data center AI market within three to five years.

• AMD expects its data center business to grow 80% annually and reach $1T in revenue by 2030.

• Music to the ears of Shareholders no doubt. But revenue increased (just) 36% from a year earlier in the fiscal third quarter, which ended on Sept. 27. The stock AMD is up nearly 116% so far in 2025 alone. For the fourth quarter, AMD expects about $9.6 billion in revenue, implying 25% growth. At least they got the PR right this time. 🤷‍♂️

The bubble days of AI in the 2020s continues. 🥂

Nvidia Earnings

Nvidia did not let us down beating expectations for the 13th straight quarter.

The demand for compute is insatiable heading into 2026. We are entering the age of Inference.

• Nvidia recorded revenue of $57.0 billion, up 22% from Q2 and 62% from a year ago.

• With Data Center revenue of $51.2 billion, up 25% from Q2 and 66% from a year ago.

• Nvidia is forecasting about $65 billion in sales for the (Q4) fourth quarter, higher than what Wall Street was estimating.

The AI boom can’t become an AI bubble with the demand for Nvidia’s GPUs this strong.

“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” he said on the company’s earnings call. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”

Read Official

What’s in a Picture: IBM Quantum Loon and IBM Quantum Nighthawk

More on that in my Quantum Newsletter soon.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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Good Morning,

If TSMC is any indication, BigTech is going to have a great earnings in about two weeks. To say that TSMC underpins the AI demand for compute movement would be an underestimate. As you might know, TSMC has benefited from the artificial-intelligence megatrend as it manufactures advanced AI processors for clients, including Nvidia and Apple.

As dominant ASML is in Europe, TSMC is now in Asia.

As Asia’s largest technology company by market capitalization, TSMC has benefited from the artificial-intelligence boom, producing advanced AI processors for clients such as Nvidia and Apple.

View TSMC Q3 Earnings

• Year-over-year, third quarter revenue increased 30.3%, while net income and diluted EPS increased 39.1% and 39.0% respectively.

• TSMC’s high-performance computing division, which encompasses artificial intelligence and 5G applications, made up the majority of third-quarter sales accounting for 57% of revenues.

• TSMC also increased its expected floor for capacity expansion and upgrades to $40 billion for the full year, up from a previous floor of $38 billion.

It costs AI players around $50bn to build each gigawatt of AI capacity, TSMC CEO CC Wei said Thursday. Wei declines to say how much of that flows to TSMC. - Tim Culpan.

There is no Nvidia without TSMC, there is no OpenAI without Nvidia. All the vendor financing in the world around AI Infrastructure revolves around TSMC now, it’s incredible supply chain in TAiwan as it continues to expand in Arizona, USA.

While Nvidia has incredible margins, the real ‘picks and shovels’ play really is TSMC of course. Odd how so many investors and analysts still don’t fully understand this. The demand for compute acceleration of the 2020s is going to great a giant in TSMC and we’re starting to see this in 2025 more clearly.

“Our advanced packaging revenue is approaching 10%, a significant portion of our revenue, and it’s important to our customers.” - TSMC, CEO.

Image credit: Jasper Juinen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

ASML Earnings this Week Too

• Netherlands based ASML continues to benefit from the AI boom with investments helping fuel orders of 5.4 billion euros ($6.28 billion) in the third quarter.

• However, CEO Christophe Fouquet warned that the firm expects customer demand and sales in China to decline significantly next year compared to 2024 and 2025.

Let’s now do our round-up of the last three weeks in Semiconductor news with our usual focus on Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. This information is curated from analysts mostly located in Taipei.

To give you some context as to how 2025 is a turning point for the future of technology, 2025 will be the year Nvidia tops Apple as TSMC’s biggest customer. Unimaginable even three years ago.

I might be biased since I live in Taiwan currently, but I don’t think so - TSMC’s position is beyond criticism and in a scenario where the demand for compute keeps going up - likely the most crucial tech company in the world. One that is not fully baked into their stock due to geopolitical concerns. As such, this issue is going to focus even more on TSMC than usual!

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I went into some details about Nvidia’s Earnings here. As well as some of my AI bubble concerns with regards to the vendor financing of Nvidia with regards to the likes of OpenAI and CoreWeave here.

The Nvidia Patterns

Nvidia's AI Deals of 2025 - Exponential Demand for Compute Rising

I have tried to cover Nvidia, for instance here or here, and display some understanding of their trajectory in AI chips, but it’s difficult. It’s unprecedented scale and capital we are talking about…

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7 months ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Michael Spencer

Nvidia’s Aggressive Vendor Financing may be Inflating AI Chip Sales

This however may be simply to meet capacity and the tremendous demand for compute (they may have no choice). Whatever the reason given their monopolistic marketshare on the best GPUs for datacenters, it’s highly concerning in terms of fair competition. This circular spending of money OpenAI doesn’t even have is not the most honest type of marketing and announcements and it might be them trying to create artificial moats of distribution and AI Infrastructure.

One thing is clear, is that there is a serious semiconductor boom to meet the accelerating demand for the compute that makes AI Infrastructure comparable to infrastructure projects historically like the railways system or internet infrastructure. That’s not to say that Generative AI is necessarily a (GPT) general purpose technology (e.g. it’s not creating new jobs at scale). Gen AI may only have some characteristics of a GPT, and the U.S. would likely be in a recession without the inflated and orchestrated AI boom.

Sam Altman Wants you to think that AI Infrastructure is the Trump Card of our Times

Sam Altman argues in his blog post that as artificial intelligence rapidly advances and becomes more accessible, it will drive the global economy and could eventually be viewed as a fundamental human right, with nearly everyone seeking more AI to handle tasks on their behalf. To realize this potential, OpenAI envisions building a massive factory capable of producing a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure—encompassing chips, power, and robotics—every week, primarily in the United States to accelerate development and counter faster progress elsewhere. Altman highlights transformative possibilities, such as AI curing cancer or providing personalized tutoring worldwide with sufficient compute, and promises forthcoming details on plans, partners, and financing.

Read the Blog

This inspite of the U.S. not having a mature energy infrastructure to even handle the demand for power that all of these new datacenters will necessitate.

Even Tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg recognize there’s a significant bubble with this AI Infrastructure capex frenzy that historically is likely to hit headwinds of one kind or another.

A new Bain report says AI buildout will need $2 trillion in annual revenue just to sustain its growth, and the shortfall could keep GPUs scarce and energy grids strained through 2030.

Read the Report

According to Bain:

• AI’s computational needs are growing more than twice as fast as Moore’s law, pushing toward 100 gigawatts of new demand in the US by 2030.

• Meeting this demand could require $500 billion in annual spending on new data centers.

Here’s where it gets really wild, by 2030, AI companies will need $2 trillion in combined annual revenue to fund the computing power needed to meet projected demand, Bain said in its annual Global Technology Report released Tuesday. Yet their revenue is likely to fall $800 billion short of that mark as efforts to monetize services like ChatGPT trail the spending requirements for data centers and related infrastructure, Bain predicted.

The Return On Investment (ROI) Problem of AI Infrastructure

• Many analysts point out that the near-term ROI of Generative AI and capex is not significant in the foreseeable and various reports and papers question the validity of the sizeable investment.

Download Bain's Full Report

• Bain estimates that inference and training requirements have grown at more than twice the rate of transistor density, forcing data center operators to brute-force scale rather than rely on per-chip efficiency gains.

I find it a compelling argument related to our Semiconductor topic, especially as it relates to AI Infrastructure challenges in the second half of the 2020s.

Exaggerated capex and AI Infrastructure push coinciding with a deteriorating labor demand means we are likely on the praecipe of an economic slump in 2026. The BigTech hyperscaler capex may not be healthy for the U.S. economy at a time of consumer weakness and uncertainty over the impact of Generative AI on the labor market and things like entry level jobs, software developer career ladders and changes to immigration policy that radically hurting the ability of Indians and Chinese to establish themselves in Silicon Valley. Combined with the fact that the full impact of Trump Tariffs haven’t even been felt yet, the numbers don’t really add up.

Intel getting backing from the Trump Administration, Nvidia and even maybe Apple is fairly perplexing given Intel’s general inability to compete with the likes of TSMC, AMD and others in the last few years. No amount of money is likely to enable Intel to return to former glory. With capex in AI and private market valuations of AI startups that aren’t tethered with fundamentals we are seeing technology bubble like symptoms that are pushing Semiconductor earnings up, somewhat artificially.

The New Normal

• How will society find the ability to generate enough power to keep up with the demand for compute? Energy might be the bottleneck that decides the AI winners of the next decade.

S&P 500 forward P/E is now at the same level as 2021

The stock market seems more influenced by the AI boom than the real economy and existing labor market and K-shaped recovery since the Pandemic.

Nvidia’s Pusing Taiwan AI Servers up

According to Dan Nystedt (an analyst in Taipei), strong demand for Nvidia Blackwell-based AI servers sent August revenue at Taiwan’s ‘Big 6’ makers up a combined 24.8% year-on-year to NT$1.11 trillion (US$36.6 billion).

The real partnership between TSMC and Nvidia are clearly the leaders of this moment. Taiwan’s “Big Six” AI Server companies are accelerating revenue in proportion to the wider market for the demand for compute. Taiwan’s ecosystem is slowly but surely also building around TSMC in Arizona and even in Texas. The U.S. is thus using Taiwan’s prominence in the semiconductor industry to its own benefit.

• This Newsletter is a great place to keep track of East Asia semiconductor news, especially with regards to TSMC and Taiwan, our primary focus. So issues related to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. will drive most of our news updates. As I curate this news it also has to do with TSMC’s oversized global role and the number of analysts in Taipei watching this stuff. It’s impossible for me to bring you this news from the point of view of China or the United States, since Taiwan-South Korea and Japan are the key semiconductor supply center of the world as I see it in 2025.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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I hope you had a good summer, this Newsletter is back to its regular cadence of about 2-3 times a month.

I went into some details about Nvidia’s Earnings here.

• To read our last issues go here.

My intent is to catch you up on the major Semiconductor News via curation from Twitter and other sources.

I currently live in Taiwan (near Taichung) so much of this is from the perspective of semiconductor news as it relates to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan and to a lesser extent the United States.

TSMC’s ecosystem is lifting Taiwan’s GDP during the AI boom in the 2020s like few times in history:

Part of the mandate of this Newsletter is also to highlight TSMC’s and Taiwan’s unique role in the global semiconductor supply chain. Too often this is taken for granted. Much of this Newsletter is bullet points of notable events that took place in August, 2025.

Speaking of which this August - TSMC founder Morris Chang arrived in Taiwan 40-years ago (8/18/1985) and began his journey to build TSMC into the world’s biggest chip maker, media report, calling it a “Date with Destiny”. Chang was originally hired to lead the government-led R&D institute (ITRI), but within 2-weeks, officials proposed he build a semiconductor company. The rest is history.

TSMC’s global push in the 2020s is also going to be formidable. For instance, Taiwan will set up a task force on the potential of setting up science parks (industrial parks) overseas, including in India, USA, Mexico, Poland, to help local companies expand abroad, media report, citing Taiwan’s economics minister, who said Taiwan’s financial institutions are willing to provide support. The task force will work with local industry groups, including TEEMA, which is led by Foxconn Chairman Young Liu.

Shall we begin?

Taiwan’s AI Server Makers are Surging on Blackwell demand

The Cambricon Attack

Chinese No.2 AI chipmaker Cambricon's revenue reached RMB 2.881 billion, a YoY increase of 43 times.

• Cambricon's revenue climbed over 4,000% year over year to 2.88 billion Chinese yuan ($402.7 million) in the first half of 2025, with net profit reaching a record 1.04 billion yuan. Read more.

Today’s issue really is like a crash course in TSMC’s impact and news, even more so than usual. Also a lot of global diversification. Japan investing in India, South Korea investing in the U.S. and a lot of big moves like that. The compute demand is lifting a lot of Taiwanese companies around TSMC, and it’s like few other things happening in the industry.

For you history buffs - Between 1994 and 2019, only twice Intel spent less capex than TSMC. But from 2020, TSMC consistently outspent Intel. In 2025 alone, TSMC will spend $22B more capex than Intel. However, 47% of Intel's 2025 capex is offset by subsidies, partners (Apollo, Brookfield) and customer payments.

We had a lot of earnings news too in August, so sort of a massive article.

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🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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After, or rightfully still in the middle of a Summer hiatus this will be a condensed “catch up” post for what we may have missed in the Semiconductor news cycle of the past few weeks. Note that we’ll return to our usual cadence by the end of August, when most of your are back at your work desks. 🌴🥥🌺

BigAI is Emerging

• Anthropic expects ARR of $9 Billion by the end of 2025, while OpenAI claims it’s reached $12 Billion in annual recurring revenue in August, 2025.

• BigAI refers to a new group of companies outside of BigTech and that BigTech have invested in including Microsoft, Amazon and Google into the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic. This group is likely to soon include xAI, Meta Superintelligence Lab and Thinking Machines Lab soon (“Thinky”).

• Nvidia is also part of BigAI and is likely to hit a market cap of $5 Trillion this year.

Samsung Earnings - Is Samsung the next Intel? 🇰🇷

• For the quarter that ended on June 30, Samsung reported consolidated revenue of 74.6 trillion won ($57.4 billion), up 1% year-over-year but down 6% from the previous quarter.

• Samsung Electronics suffered a sharp earnings shock in the April to June period, with operating profit plunging 55.23 percent year-on-year to 4.68 trillion won ($3.37 billion) due to a slump in the semiconductor business.

See Results

• Net profit shrank 48% to 5.12 trillion won, falling short of analysts’ expectation of 6.39 trillion won.

• By sector, the semiconductor business tumbled 94% on year to 400 billion won in operating profit. Revenue slipped 2.3 percent to 27.9 trillion won.

• Samsung is also paying close attention to the outcome of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s ongoing review of semiconductor tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. The results are expected to be released in mid-August. Read more.

Samsung Reportedly Investing Billions To Build Advanced Packaging Facility in U.S. After Securing Major Tesla Deal

• Three days ago, Tesla signed $16.5B deal with Samsung to make AI chips.

• In December, the Biden administration announced $4.75bn in funding for Samsung’s semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Texas under the Chips Act.

• Samsung is reportedly ready to increase its investments into the US following a major Tesla deal, and it will include setting up an advanced packaging facility in the region. Read the details.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

A Note: As I’m located in Taiwan and many of my favorite analysts are here as well, the semiconductor news is of course biased to the Taiwan, South Korea and Japan region, while I do try to cover American news here as much as I can too:

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Welcome Back!

Over the summer we may be reporting a bit less than usual on this publication regarding the semiconductor News cycle. In case you missed it, check out the coverage of last week.

There’s never been a more exciting time to follow the semiconductor industry:

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I try and curate the top semiconductor events of the past 14-21 days, following Semiconductor analysts on X, among other sources. I try to package it so anyone could get the broad strokes of the last weeks in an easy to absorb format, mostly bullet points. I ask for very modest fees and do not make a profit from this activity.

Visit the archives

• Visit the archives.

I do this on top of my usual AI coverage, Quantum computing and emerging tech curation, Op-Eds and guest post collaborations.

AMD’s new Chip

Their new lineup is a big deal to me: MI400 series of chips will be the basis of a new server called "Helios" that AMD plans to release next year. The chips will be able to be used as part of a “rack-scale” system, AMD said. That’s important for customers that want “hyperscale” clusters of AI computers that can span entire data centers.

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The new AMD Instinct™ MI350 Series accelerators look impressive as AMD wagers to become more competitive in the AI chip market that continues to accelerate. Both Huawei and AMD have been making better than anticipated progress even with Nvidia’s dominance in the market. There’s clearly enough room for competitors to thrive as well. ’s stock was up about 10% on the news.

TMSC projects Stunning Growth

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said about a week ago. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reported consolidated revenue of NT$320.52 billion (US$9.86 billion) for May 2025, down 8.3% from April but up 39.6% compared to May 2024. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. On the NYSE, TSMC’s stock is up nearly 22% during the last year.

The AI bull market has lifted many semiconductor and AI hardware and datacenter related stocks. I do have a Emerging tech stocks Newsletter as well that I will be updating soon with my top picks.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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Hey Everyone,

Here are the semiconductor news highlights of the past three weeks.

It’s a crazy time again as The United States has ordered a broad swathe of companies to stop shipping goods to China without a license and revoked licenses already granted to certain suppliers. Products affected include design software and chemicals for semiconductors, butane and ethane, machine tools, and aviation equipment. Read the details (Bloomberg).

The United States will “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students studying in the U.S., including those with ties to the CCP or studying in critical fields, according to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Let’s first take a serious snapshot of Nvidia’s Earnings:

Nvidia Earnings

Nvidia’s earnings were very important for validation that demand is still great for AI chips. I believe the CEO covers this fairly well in the video below.

Highlights

• Nvidia’s data center business recorded year-over-year growth above 73%.

• Overall revenue grew 69% during the quarter

• Sales in the company’s data center division, which includes AI chips and related parts, grew 73%.

• Guidance is not stellar: Nvidia said it expects about $45 billion in sales in the current quarter, versus LSEG estimates of $45.9 billion in sales in the July quarter.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told investors on an earnings call that the $50 billion market in China for AI chips is “effectively closed to U.S. industry.” Where they will write off around $8 Billion.

• Nvidia reported $26 billion in the same period last year. This year they reported $44.1 billion for the quarter, for a 69% YOY raise.

• Net income increased 26% to $18.8 billion.

• I expect the stock to be up between 5-6% today. , Earnings went live AH yesterday.

• The company’s automotive and robotics division reported sales growth of 72% to $567 million.

• On April 9, 2025, NVIDIA was informed by the U.S. government that a license is required for exports of its H20 products into the China market. As a result of these new requirements, NVIDIA incurred a $4.5 billion charge in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 associated with H20 excess inventory and purchase obligations as the demand for H20 diminished. The China loss appear fairly serious.

Read Nvidia's Brief

Reasoning Models and Inference Demand Revolution

Jensen sounded very optimistic post Earnings this week.

• Nvidia said it spent $14.1 billion on share repurchases during the quarter and paid $244 million in dividends.

Nvidia CEO Interview (CNBC)

This is my favorite recent interview by Jensen Huang.

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🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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Welcome Back,

I’m aiming to send this Newsletter more often, though likely after the slow summer months. I wanted to build a place where you could get completely caught up on the Semiconductor news cycle - with minimal effort on your part.

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• Newsletter goes out every 2-3 weeks (usually goes out at 7am on a Thursday: goal)

• Newsletters are long, with many bullet points for easy consumption (scanning)

• A lot of curated material especially from the Semiconductor community on X

• Typically this Newsletter is obsessed with TSMC, and news from the perspective of Taiwan, the U.S. and companies like Nvidia.

• Special attention is paid to semiconductor events in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China, etc… I’m also going to put more citations, in case you want to go deeper…

What to Watch 👀

The semiconductor industry is getting super interesting to watch in 2025. With Trump rescinding the Biden-Era Semiconductor Curbs there’s going to be a shift meanwhile with Earnings, we’ve learned that Chip companies from AMD to Super Micro ($SMIC) are saying U.S. tariff policy and export restrictions to China have caused uncertainty for their businesses.

As you might know, Nvidia strongly opposes the AI Diffusion Rule, warns that it poses risks to U.S. AI global dominance. Nvidia’s CEO is concerned about what Huawei will become as a future competitor as its AI chips show faster than expected progress. '

"We are at an inflection point: The United States needs to decide if it is going to continue to lead the global development and deployment of AI or if we are going to retreat and retrench," Huang told the committee on Thursday, May 1.

“China is not Behind”

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• Nvidia faces vast new regulations as a US lawmaker will propose a bill to track AI chips, and brick systems in use outside of approved areas, Reuters reports, adding tracking chips, etc. are readily available. The idea for the bill came after Nvidia said it cannot track its products after they are sold. The bill has broad bipartisan support. Read: Nvidia Chip smuggling bill.

• Nvidia has been blocked from China, and Huawei is cashing in, last week, the Shenzhen-based tech group Huawei - launched its Ascend 910D chip, designed to compete with Nvidia’s flagship H100. Read the full blog.

• TSMC also said there is “no assurance” despite best efforts, to ensure the chips it manufactures don’t end up in the wrong place, violating export controls, in its annual report. The new US bill is a good answer to the problem and clearly will affect many more chip makers, like AMD, Broadcom, Intel, SK Hynix, Micron, Samsung, Marvell, Alchip, MediaTek, GUC, others.

• AI Chip export controls are difficult to regulate and are likely leading to China attempting to accelerate its own semiconductor (SMIC, among others) ecosystem and AI chip makers like Huawei to thrive and rise in competition with Nvidia. Given the demand for datacenters, Nvidia vs. Huawei (and not AMD, ARM or Broadcom) is looking like the new face of the AI chip cold war.

TSMC’s 2nm Process Said to Witness ‘Unprecedented’ Demand, Exceeding 3nm Due to Interest from Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, & Many Others

It is claimed that TSMC's 2nm process could very well spark the company's next "gold rush," as the process is expected to deliver significant generational performance gains. TSMC is considered many years ahead of rivals like Samsung, Intel and others.

The Taiwan chip giant has seen demand for its cutting-edge node with almost every generation, and it seems like there is a trend where "demand records" are being broken with each process iteration. Read the entire piece.

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• Subscribe to access the entire piece.

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The semiconductor industry has been under pressure with trade war uncertainty and supply-chain chaos. It’s April 17th, let’s catch up on the last three weeks of Semiconductor AI chips news.

Top Wall Street Analysts (Jefferies, Bernstein, Raymond James) on NVIDIA H20 Ban: "Banning the H20 makes little sense to us.” These licenses however might as well be bans. They also apply to certain AMD and Intel products.

TSMC Earnings

TSMC 1st Quarter 2025 Earnings

• Revenue NT$839.25 billion (US$25.526 B)

• Gross Margin 58.8% vs guide 57.0% - 59.0%

Read the Brief

• Year-over-year, first quarter revenue increased 41.6%, while net income and diluted EPS increased 60.3% and 60.4% respectively.

• The company faces headwinds from the trade policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has placed broad trade tariffs on Taiwan and stricter export controls on TSMC clients Nvidia and AMD. Yet Trump is asking them to build even more in the U.S.

• Meanwhile, the company said advanced technologies, defined as 7-nanometer and less, accounted for 73% of total wafer revenue.

US Launches a Semiconductor Probe Into Feasibility Of Domestic Chip Production

The US Commerce Department is now scrutinizing semiconductor imports, evaluating the potential in the domestic chip industry, and enforcing export controls. This probe, which began on April 1, 2025, is being conducted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the President to enact tariffs for national security reasons.

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The China trade tariffs are putting extreme pressure on semiconductor supply-chain orders and guidance. [e.g. ASML orders down]

Read ASML Q1-2025

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Today well met, we’re just going to jump right in (we have a lot to cover):

The stakes are high: 🚀

"For the next few years America is likely to win the race in AI. Then it will be a function of who controls the AI chip fabrication. If more of the factories are owned by China then China will win. Right now all the chip fabs are in Taiwan. 100%. If China invades Taiwan in the near term the world will be cut off from advanced AI chips. I think it's essential for national security that we begin manufacturing our own chips in the US." - Elon Musk

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

(March 6th to March 27th, 2025)

• What to expect in 2025? Global Fab equipment spending is expected to hit US$110 billion, up 2% year-on-year and the 6th straight year of growth. In 2026, fab spending is seen up 18% to $130 billion, driven by demand for high performance computing (HPC), memory chips, and AI silicon for edge devices.

• China to remain Top Buyer in 2025: 1. China $38 billion, down 24% from $50B in 2024 2. South Korea $21.5B 3. Taiwan $21B 4. Americas $14B 5. Japan $14B 6. EMEA $9B 7. Southeast Asia $4B.

• The good fight: Qualcomm has taken its fight against ARM global, arguing its biggest supplier is guilty of anticompetitive behavior for restricting access to its technology after operating an open network for over 20 years in complaints to the European Commission, US Federal Trade Commission and Korea Fair Trade Commission, Bloomberg reports.

• ⚖️ Tariffs for Liberation Day: US President Trump put semiconductors, autos, lumber and pharmaceuticals back on the list of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and could be announced Wednesday, media report. He pledged hefty tariffs on some trading partners, while others may be given a break. “They’ve charged us so much that I’m embarrassed to charge them what they’ve charged us, but it’ll be substantial,” he reportedly said.

OpenAI Discusses Building Its First Data Center for Storage

About to disclose a $40 billion funding round, OpenAI has been in discussions about constructing its first dedicated data center for storage. This potential move is part of a strategic shift towards increasing its own data storage capabilities, away from reliance on external cloud providers, according to reporting by The Information.

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Welcome Back,

I’ve been under the weather so missed the Thursday 07:00 AM schedule, so making it up on Friday today this morning. Today’s semiconductor news is for the last 15 days. Trade tariffs and macro geopolitics has been putting pressure on Tech and semi stocks.

• Welcome to the 25th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow.

• I’ll skip the long intro today, because we have a lot of catch-up to cover.

Previous Issues

1. Trump Tariffs on Semis, Broadcom ᱝ Eats Intel, TSMC under the bus🚌, Microsoft Quantum, and other Geopolitical worries of Semis con't.

2. Semiconductor Earnings, Huawei Ascend 910C via DeepSeek, Samsung joining Stargate? Lunar new year and Semi surprises.

3. TSMC into the Global limelight in 2025, Nvidia under pressure, Geopolitics anticipating Trump State, U.S. ramps up China Export controls even further

4. Intel Loses CEO, Google Trillium, Nvidia Earnings, Amazon Trainium 2 and More Trade Wars

5. OpenAI's AI Infrastructure plans, AMD Layoffs, ASML Projections, U.S. playing the "Taiwan Card" could hurt both China and Taiwan.

Broadcom Earnings

Broadcom reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday that topped analysts’ expectations, and offered strong guidance for the current quarter.

Broadcom said it expects about $14.9 billion in second-quarter revenue, higher than the $14.76 billion forecast by Wall Street analysts. Revenue in the last quarter rose 25% from $11.96 billion a year earlier. The stock should be up in the 5-10% range today and it gives the AI chip sector more confidence in the macro picture.

Nvidia Earnings

Nvidia’s revenue in the quarter rose 78%, and full fiscal-year revenue for Nvidia rose 114% to $130.5 billion. Some analysts were looking for more! Nvidia said it expected about $43 billion in first-quarter revenue, plus or minus 2%, versus $41.78 billion expected per LSEG estimates. It tends to like to under-promise and over deliver.

Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said the company expects “a significant ramp” of sales of Blackwell, its next-generation AI chip, in the first quarter. However the stock has been under significant pressure since DeepSeek-R1’s announcement. Nvidia’s stock is down 20% so far in 2025.

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Nvidia’s Sudden Rise 🚀

• Nvidia became the world’s biggest semiconductor company of any kind in 2024, as annual revenue rose 114% to US$130.50 billion.

• Nvidia has seen significant revenue growth over the last three years. In 2022, the company's revenue was $26.974 billion, and by fiscal 2025, it had grown to an impressive $130.5 billion.

• Fiscal Year 2023: Nvidia had a revenue of $26.974 billion.

• Fiscal Year 2024: The revenue increased to $60.922 billion, which was a significant rise from the previous year.

• Fiscal Year 2025: Nvidia reported annual revenue of $130.497 billion, continuing the upward trend.

Stock Performance 2022-2025

Over the past three years, NVIDIA Corporation's stock (NVDA) has experienced substantial growth. Specifically, the stock performance over this period is remarkable, revealing a phenomenal increase of approximately 984.81% from a notably lower price level.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

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Hey Everyone,

We certain have some Earnings reports to go over.

• Welcome to the 24th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow.

• Usually this Newsletter is around twice a month.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis. But also Asia semiconductor news, heavily relying on X.

• I’m convinced that in 2025 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late. More frequent publications might appear on Friday or even Saturdays for premium readers.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

Upgrade to Premium

🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of February 6th, 2025 to roughly February 20th, 2025. Also some pieces on Semiconductor Reports finally started to appear.

• Mostly this Newsletter consists of just curated bullets formatted content of news snippets, so it’s more about catching up than diving deep into any particular story. I try to link a fair number of sources however.

I try to highlight stories I find the most salient, while presenting a wide array of news stories. It includes a fair share of 🙊 “rumors” from Taiwan.

Although for the most part I try to stick to facts or reported stories often from Japanese or South Korean sources. My work is therefore by no means original with a focus primarily on the semiconductor news cycle itself. It’s geared to save you time, if you want to keep up with this niche.

My main hope is that I can present it in a way that accessible, easy to digest and doesn’t miss too much, which I hope makes up for the low frequency of the coverage (sometimes absent, disclosure - I do my best 🤗).

Previous Issues

1. Semiconductor Earnings, Huawei Ascend 910C via DeepSeek, Samsung joining Stargate? Lunar new year and Semi surprises.

2. TSMC into the Global limelight in 2025, Nvidia under pressure, Geopolitics anticipating Trump State, U.S. ramps up China Export controls even further

3. Intel Loses CEO, Google Trillium, Nvidia Earnings, Amazon Trainium 2 and More Trade Wars

4. OpenAI's AI Infrastructure plans, AMD Layoffs, ASML Projections, U.S. playing the "Taiwan Card" could hurt both China and Taiwan.

5. SK Hynix Boom, AMD's Poor Guidance, China's Evasive Maneuvers, Earnings coming into Focus

Intel’s Future is a Trump Project

What a wacky world this is becoming folks. the WSJ report on Broadcom and TSMC splitting apart Intel is one for the ages.

Trump might arrange TSMC to take Over Intel

President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on imports of automobiles, semiconductor chips, and pharmaceutical products, effective as soon as April 2, 2025. This move is part of a broader strategy aimed at addressing significant trade deficits with various countries, particularly focusing on reshaping U.S. trade policy. It’s a bit of a sticking point for TSMC and Taiwan though. Read further.

• The TSMC and Trump angle is a bit strange.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• US President Trump said he will impose tariffs "in the neighborhood of 25%" on imported semiconductors as well as pharmaceuticals and automobiles, media report, with auto tariffs in place as soon as April 2. The timing on chips and pharma tariffs is unclear.

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Hey Everyone,

We certain have some Earnings reports to go over.

• Welcome to the 23rd edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow. Due to Lunar New Year we skipped, so this post will be a bit longer than usual.

• Usually this Newsletter is around twice a month.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis. But also Asia semiconductor news, heavily relying on X.

• I’m convinced that in 2025 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late. More frequent publications might appear on Friday or even Saturdays for premium readers.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

Upgrade to Premium

🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of January 10th, 2025 to roughly February 6th, 2025. So we have a bit of a time gap (Lunar break) to cover.

• Mostly this Newsletter consists of just curated bullets formatted content of news snippets, so it’s more about catching up than diving deep into any particular story. I try to link a fair number of sources however.

I try to highlight stories I find the most salient, while presenting a wide array of news stories. It includes a fair share of 🙊 “rumors” from Taiwan. Although for the most part I try to stick to facts or reported stories often from Japanese or South Korean sources. My work is therefore by no means original with a focus primarily on the semiconductor news cycle itself. It’s geared to save you time, if you want to keep up with this niche.

My main hope is that I can present it in a way that accessible, easy to digest and doesn’t miss too much, which I hope makes up for the low frequency of the coverage (sometimes absent, disclosure - I do my best 🤗).

Subscribe now

Previous Issues

1. TSMC into the Global limelight in 2025, Nvidia under pressure, Geopolitics anticipating Trump State, U.S. ramps up China Export controls even further

2. Intel Loses CEO, Google Trillium, Nvidia Earnings, Amazon Trainium 2 and More Trade Wars

3. OpenAI's AI Infrastructure plans, AMD Layoffs, ASML Projections, U.S. playing the "Taiwan Card" could hurt both China and Taiwan.

4. SK Hynix Boom, AMD's Poor Guidance, China's Evasive Maneuvers, Earnings coming into Focus

Semiconductor Taiwan Publications 👇🏻

1. TechSoda

2. SEMI VISION

3. Semiecosystem

4. SemiconSam

5. Grab a Chip｜半導體速報

For trending insights on Semiconductor Earnings, see: Semiconductor Business Intelligence (SBI) with .

• For investors, some of the news curated here is valuable.

🚀 A Jensen From the Past

Nvidia went public Jan, 22nd, 1999 at $12 per a share. Just look at that Taiwanese smile! 🤩 (they sure didn’t make it easy for him)

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Hey Everyone,

I’m still on battery saving mode, so today’s issue might be shorter and less thorough than usual. As we head into 2025, semiconductor supply chains, AI chips and supply chains for American technology, have never been more crucial for human civilization, the global economy and the shareholder value of the most profitable BigTech corporations in the world.

• Welcome to the 22nd edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow. Due to Thanksgiving we skipped a week, so this post will be a bit more epic than usual.

• Usually this Newsletter is twice a month, sometimes a bit more.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis.

• I’m convinced that in 2024 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late. More frequent publications might appear on Friday or even Saturdays for premium readers.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

Upgrade to Premium

🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of December 13th, 2024 to January 9th, 2025.

⚪ I will be tracking some breaking news and writing some Op-eds here. Though this has been slow to get off the ground. We are behind schedule.

While it’s challenging to summarize such a busy space, you could get away with just following this Newsletter, and you’d be okay.

Previous Issues

1. Intel Loses CEO, Google Trillium, Nvidia Earnings, Amazon Trainium 2 and More Trade Wars

2. OpenAI's AI Infrastructure plans, AMD Layoffs, ASML Projections, U.S. playing the "Taiwan Card" could hurt both China and Taiwan.

3. SK Hynix Boom, AMD's Poor Guidance, China's Evasive Maneuvers, Earnings coming into Focus

4. TSMC Earnings, ASML Woes, Nvidia's Blackwell Demand, Meta's Weird Datacenter Overhaul

5. Cerebras is going IPO, Intel's Woes magnified, TSMC news all around~ stormy weather.

6. The Semiconductor Boom Times: coming soon: 2025-2030 'Blackwell Surge Era'.

Taiwan’s TSMC is more Important Than Ever heading into 2025

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will begin full-scale production in the United States and Germany, after the start of mass production at its first Japanese chip plant in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture, last December. New plants are scheduled to be completed in Arizona this year and in Dresden in 2027, while the construction of TSMC’s second Japanese factory is also expected to begin soon at a location adjacent to the Kikuyo plant.

It’s not clear to me if TSMC diversifying outside of the island of Taiwan is a deterrent to a Chinese invasion or the opposite.

Leave a comment

Read the Japan Times for more coverage. Both Intel and Samsung in 2024 had poor years and it’s not clear who if anyone can provide to the world what TSMC is now capable of.

As you know, The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plays a pivotal role in the global semiconductor supply chain, being the world's largest contract chip manufacturer. TSMC is responsible for producing a significant portion of the world's most advanced chips, holding approximately 54% of the global foundry market and producing nearly 90% of the most advanced chips used in various technologies, including artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. It is also crucial to the entire National economy of Taiwan with dozens of supporting companies and now western firms are building more satellite offices here.

Speculation is that TSMC is between 5-15 years ahead of SMIC and China’s own capabilities.

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Hello Everyone,

• Welcome to the 21st edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow. Due to Thanksgiving we skipped a week, so this post will be a bit more epic than usual.

• Usually this Newsletter is twice a month, sometimes a bit more.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis.

• I’m convinced that in 2024 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late. More frequent publications might appear on Friday or even Saturdays for premium readers.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

Upgrade to Premium

🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of November 14th to December 12th, 2024.

⚪ I will be tracking some breaking news and writing some Op-eds here. Though this has been slow to get off the ground. We are behind schedule.

While it’s challenging to summarize such a busy space, you could get away with just following this Newsletter, and you’d be okay.

Previous Issues

1. OpenAI's AI Infrastructure plans, AMD Layoffs, ASML Projections, U.S. playing the "Taiwan Card" could hurt both China and Taiwan.

2. SK Hynix Boom, AMD's Poor Guidance, China's Evasive Maneuvers, Earnings coming into Focus

3. TSMC Earnings, ASML Woes, Nvidia's Blackwell Demand, Meta's Weird Datacenter Overhaul

4. Cerebras is going IPO, Intel's Woes magnified, TSMC news all around~ stormy weather.

5. The Semiconductor Boom Times: coming soon: 2025-2030 'Blackwell Surge Era'.

Nvidia Earnings

On November 20th, Nvidia reported third-quarter earnings that beat expectations for sales and earnings while delivering a better-than-expected forecast for the current quarter. Revenue continues to surge at Nvidia, rising 94% on an annual basis during the quarter that ended on Oct. 27. Read full review.

Nvidia’s stock is up another astounding 189% year to date. In early December after some Trade sanctions, China opened a probe of the AI chip company for violating anti-monopoly laws. Read coverage. Nvidia makes around 17% of its sales from China and that figure is actually rising. China trade retaliations to more sanctions include valuable rare minerals to the U.S. relevant to the semiconductor supply chain.

Nvidia on in the Trade Wars Cross-fire?

Will China’s probe impact future Nvidia sales? Will the Trade war continue to escalate when Trump takes power? U.S. exceptionalism means that the Biden administration keeps broadening limits on Chinese access to advanced microchip technology, with Donald Trump expected to go even further. In late November, Trump vowed to add another 10% to Trade tariffs on China. You might recall that Trump had threatened tariffs of 60% on Chinese goods while campaigning for president.

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Highlight of the Cycle 🌟

TSMC’s October, 2024 revenue hit an all-time high NT$314.24 billion (US$9.82 billion) up 29.2% year-on-year, and up 24.8% over September. NT$256.95 billion was the previous record high for a single month, in July 2024.

Hello Everyone,

• Welcome to the 20th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow. Usually this Newsletter is twice a month, sometimes a bit more.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis.

• I’m convinced that in 2024 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

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🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of November 1st to November 14th, 2024.

⚪ I will be tracking some breaking news and writing some Op-eds here. Though this has been slow to get off the ground.

Previous Issues

1. SK Hynix Boom, AMD's Poor Guidance, China's Evasive Maneuvers, Earnings coming into Focus

2. TSMC Earnings, ASML Woes, Nvidia's Blackwell Demand, Meta's Weird Datacenter Overhaul

3. Cerebras is going IPO, Intel's Woes magnified, TSMC news all around~ stormy weather.

4. The Semiconductor Boom Times: coming soon: 2025-2030 'Blackwell Surge Era'.

AMD Layoffs?

AMD said on Wednesday that it will lay off 4% of its global staff. AMD's layoffs follow multiple job cuts at the firm's larger rival, Intel Corporation. Unlike AMD, Intel has struggled to retain profitability and has posted losses in two of its latest quarters.AMD had 26,000 employees at the end of last year, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. AMD is the second-biggest producer of graphics processing units, or GPUs, behind Nvidia. Read More.

OpenAI “blueprint for U.S. AI infrastructure”

OpenAI is calling for the US and its allies to work together to support the infrastructure needed to develop artificial intelligence systems and compete with China. The firm made this proposal in a policy blueprint released at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For the record who funds the CSIS? Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

OpenAI’s official “blueprint for U.S. AI infrastructure” involves artificial intelligence economic zones, tapping the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power experience and government projects funded by private investors among other things. Sam Altman had spent the early part of the year seeking the US government’s blessing for the project, which aims to form a coalition of global investors to fund the costly physical infrastructure needed to support rapid AI development. Read Further.

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Hello Everyone,

• Welcome to the 19th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow. Usually this Newsletter is twice a month, sometimes a bit more.

• This Newsletter explores TSMC, Taiwan and Nvidia in particular. Earnings are a lot of what I want to cover on an ongoing basis.

• I’m convinced that in 2024 watching the AI chips and Semiconductor space is actually the most interesting it’s been in decades.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

Typically now the Newsletters comes out two or three times a month, usually around Thursday morning (ideally at 7-9 AM EST window). Functionally often a bit late.

The Newsletter is mostly concerned with micro events in the semiconductor News cycle.

Upgrade to Premium

🔵 As I cover emerging tech over a wide spectrum, curating the AI chip and Semiconductor News forces me to keep in touch with the industry news cycle and keep learning about the various companies involved.

⚫ Today’s issue covers approximately the period of October 17th to October 31st, 2024.

⚪ I will be tracking some breaking news and writing some Op-eds here.

Previous Issues

1. TSMC Earnings, ASML Woes, Nvidia's Blackwell Demand, Meta's Weird Datacenter Overhaul

2. Cerebras is going IPO, Intel's Woes magnified, TSMC news all around~ stormy weather.

3. The Semiconductor Boom Times: coming soon: 2025-2030 'Blackwell Surge Era'

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

Chronological from the present day backwards:

• The US and Taiwan will begin talks to “reduce double taxation barriers for further investment by Taiwan into the United States, and vice versa, particularly for the small and medium-sized enterprises that are crucial to a complete semiconductor ecosystem,” The US Treasury said, adding a tax agreement is important as the US and Taiwan have no formal diplomatic relations, so income for Taiwan businesses and individuals operating in the US can be taxed by both governments. Read It on BNN.

• OpenAI is working with Broadcom on a custom chip design, which will be manufactured by TSMC next year, media report, adding OpenAI no longer wants to build its own chip manufacturing plants “due to the costs and time needed to build a network.” OpenAI will also buy AMD chips (GPUs) in addition to Nvidia GPUs for its AI servers. The custom OpenAI chip will be for inference, and is not a GPU.

• Apple exported nearly US$6 billion worth of iPhones from India in the 6-months through September, up by a third compared to a year ago, putting annual exports on track to surpass $10 billion in fiscal 2024, Bloomberg reports, adding Apple is expanding its manufacturing network in India at a rapid clip as it works to reduce its dependence on China, amid US-China tensions. I recently wrote on India’s prospects in AI and a VC boom here.

• Rare metals ⚠︎: Australia is looking at mining waste as a potential supply source of gallium and germanium, materials essential to cutting edge semiconductors, after China’s decision to tighten export controls on the elements, Nikkei reports, noting Australia believes it could help allay concerns over the elements. An Australian official noted there is a lot of gallium in alumina refining, which currently isn’t captured, and a lot of germanium in zinc refining, also not currently captured – but both could be.

“AMD said its important data center business doubled in sales for the second quarter in a row.”

AMD shares fall as forecast fails to impress despite strong AI growth

Advanced Micro Devices reported third-quarter results on Tuesday, with earnings in line with forecasts and revenue that slightly beat expectations. However guidance didn’t impress. It really wasn’t so bad, AMD reported revenue of $6.82 billion, exceeding expectations of $6.71 billion. This represents an 18% increase year-over-year and a 17% increase from the previous quarter. Wall Street wasn't too keen on the company's Q4 revenue outlook, which it said will come in between $7.2 billion and $7.8 billion. Wall Street was looking for $7.55 billion. Read the details here and here.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• TSMC has cut off at least 2 chip clients over potential links to China’s Huawei, on suspicion they were trying to circumvent US export controls, Nikkei reports, citing unnamed sources. Both companies had placed 7nm orders to TSMC and gradually increased the volume, raising alarms at TSMC. The report does not name the two firms.

• SemiAnalysis: The US is playing semiconductor whack-a-mole with China, which is surging forward in AI, a key national security concern. What will the world look like if China wins in AI, gaining expert-level science and engineering or with human-or-better cognition (AGI)? SemiAnalysis continues: “There are enough chips being shipped to China + manufactured domestically to create the world’s largest AI training cluster. For the most part, AI chips are decentralized in China with the largest known clusters 1/3 the size of the largest US ones, but a concentration of efforts could lead to cluster sizes that dwarf those in the US in less than a year.”

• Special Report: “Our months-long investigations found Russia is binge buying the world’s most coveted Nvidia AI chips despite sanctions. A mysterious Indian pharma company is pulling the strings.” Read the Bloomberg piece.

• Samsung Electronics’ ability to manage crises is causing growing scrutiny ahead of its 3rd quarter earnings call, as earnings have slowed due to its struggles with AI memory chips, HBM3e (high bandwidth memory, 5th generation), media report, noting troubles at the company are rooted in a souring corporate culture, in which excessive competition between executives is damaging chip yields at the firm, a problem mirrored in its foundry business, which is struggling with 3nm chip yields.

Inside the 100K GPU xAI Colossus Cluster that Supermicro Helped Build for Elon Musk

In only 122 days xAI built its Colossus Supercomputer. It’s Elon Musk’s xAI that built a giant AI supercomputer in Memphis, this is that cluster. With 100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPUs, this multi-billion-dollar AI cluster is notable not just for its size but also for the speed at which it was built so if you are interested in some inside details here you go.

The basic building block for Colossus is the Supermicro liquid-cooled rack. This comprises eight 4U servers each with eight NVIDIA H100’s for a total of 64 GPUs per rack. Eight of these GPU servers plus a Supermicro Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) and associated hardware make up one of the GPU compute racks.

Image: Supermicro SYS 821GE TNHR NVIDIA H100 And NVSwitch Liquid Cooling Blocks 8

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