Tootfinder

Sources: the US nears a trade deal with Taiwan that would reduce tariffs on the island's exports and include a commitment from TSMC to build 5 fabs in Arizona (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/business/economy/trump-taiwan-deal.html

Trump Administration Nears Trade Deal With Taiwan
The deal would cut tariffs and include a commitment from Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, the island’s chip giant, to build more manufacturing plants in the United States.

Q&A with Stratechery's Ben Thompson on aggregation theory, AI, TikTok, ByteDance, AI agentic commerce, SaaS stocks, running Stratechery, TSMC, Stripe, and more (John Collison/Cheeky Pint)
https://cheekypint.substack.com/p/ben-thompson-from-stratechery-on…

Ben Thompson from Stratechery on AI ads, the end of SaaS, and the future of media
Ben Thompson, the internet’s premier tech analyst, joins John for a wide-ranging conversation on the mechanics of the internet economy.

Chipfertigung: TSMC knackt zum ersten Mal eine Billion Taiwan-Dollar
Der weltweit größte Chipauftragsfertiger TSMC wächst unaufhörlich weiter. Die Zahlen zeigen auch, dass die Preise für Chips steigen.
h…

Sources: TSMC urges clients to apply for N2 production allocation as far out as Q2 2027, with large capacity allotments nearly sold out for the next two years (Tim Culpan/Culpium)
https://www.culpium.com/p/tsmcs-n2-node-is-almost-booked-out

TSMC's N2 Node is Almost Booked Out for the Next Two Years
Exclusive news by Tim Culpan at Culpium on N2 being sold out for the next two years.

Cisco launches the Silicon One G300 switch chip, made using TSMC's 3nm technology to compete with Broadcom and Nvidia in the AI infrastructure market (Stephen Nellis/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

TSMC's conservative capex approach is resulting in supply-demand imbalances and foregone revenue, and hyperscalers must build up Samsung or Intel as its rivals (Ben Thompson/Stratechery)
https://stratechery.com/2026/tsmc-risk/

TSMC Risk
If hyperscalers and chip companies don’t build up a TSMC competitor they are set to forego billions of dollars in revenue and stunt the AI revolution.

Sources: the Trump administration plans to spare US hyperscalers from upcoming tariffs on chips; exemptions would be based on TSMC's US investment commitments (Aime Williams/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/e6f7f69a-2552-45f5-ae4c-6f1135e5cde1

TSMC plans to produce 3nm chips at its second plant in Kumamoto, Japan; sources say that is an upgrade from an original plan to produce 7nm chips by late 2027 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/ts…

Sources: Apple now needs to fight for TSMC production capacity amid the AI boom; Nvidia was likely TSMC's top customer in at least one or two quarters in 2025 (Tim Culpan/Culpium)
https://www.culpium.com/p/exclusiveapple-is-fighting-for-tsmc

Apple is Fighting for TSMC Capacity as Nvidia Takes Center Stage
[Exclusive] A 15-year relationship helped TSMC grow and Apple leap ahead of rivals, but now it's struggling to get enough capacity as it competes with Nvidia for supply

Taiwanese prosecutors file additional indictments against Tokyo Electron's Taiwan unit and three other defendants over the alleged theft of TSMC trade secrets (Wen-Yee Lee/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific