TSMC CEO CC Wei expects global demand for AI chips to outstrip supply for years. Speaking at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu, Wei said planned capacity additions, including new fabs in the United States, won’t be sufficient to satisfy customer demand for “a long time.”
Hyperscalers and cloud providers, which buy TSMC-made chips from Nvidia and other firms, are projected to spend 725 billion dollars on AI infrastructure this year. An estimated 40-60 percent of this figure goes to chips, propelling the semiconductor market to 1.5 trillion dollars in 2026, according to the latest WSTS forecast.
Traditionally taking a conservative approach to capacity additions, TSMC only recently took its foot off the brake in response to surging AI-driven demand. Regardless, there’s a limit to how much manufacturing capacity can be added – and subsequently be kept operational – in any given timeframe.
