Despite Intel securing nearly a 10% stake from the U.S. government, major U.S. tech companies including Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, and Broadcom continue to rely heavily on TSMC, signaling strong confidence in its advanced manufacturing capabilities. Industry sources indicate that TSMC is moving up production schedules for its Arizona fabs in response to surging client demand.

Originally, TSMC's first Arizona plant was set to begin production in 2025, but it now started 4nm volume production in late 2024. The second plant, initially slated for 2028, is being fast-tracked to early 2027 or even late 2026. Meanwhile, the third plant could commence production around 2028, handling N2 and A16 nodes, collectively advancing the timeline by at least four quarters compared to initial projections.

Demand for TSMC's advanced nodes remains exceptionally high. Last week, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang made a rapid visit to Taiwan to meet TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei and discuss production plans for NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin platform. Huang confirmed that six Rubin platform designs—including CPU, GPU, NVLINK switch chips, networking chips, and silicon photonics switch chips—are already finalized and ordered with TSMC.

Beyond NVIDIA, AI leaders such as OpenAI are also ramping up their demand for TSMC's leading-edge process technologies, often developing projects in collaboration with TSMC's key U.S. clients like Broadcom and Marvell. Even with Intel's recent government-backed investment, its own advanced process capacity remains constrained, prompting continued outsourcing to TSMC.

TSMC's second Arizona fab, using 3nm technology, has completed construction and is seeing strong interest from U.S. clients, motivating the company to accelerate production by several quarters. The third fab, designed for 2nm and A16 technologies, has broken ground, with plans to boost production speed to meet AI-related demand. Future fabs—the fourth, fifth, and sixth—are also planned to adopt cutting-edge process technologies.

While strong U.S. client support drives the rapid growth and revenue potential of TSMC's U.S. operations, the company acknowledges that overseas fab production over the next five years will dilute gross margins, initially by 2–3% annually and later reaching 3–4%. TSMC emphasizes that it will mitigate these effects by scaling its Arizona operations, improving cost structures, and closely collaborating with clients and partners.