Taiwan Semiconductor up 689% since ChatGPT, still a top AI bet: CEO

Investor attention on AI has cycled through several groups. It started with big chip names like Nvidia and Broadcom, moved to data center and energy companies such as CoreWeave and Bloom Energy, and more recently centered on memory makers like Sandisk and Micron. TSMC sits underneath all of them as the foundry that fabricates chips to clients' designs, which is why it is framed as a way to bet on the whole supply chain instead of a single name.

The company has also been expanding physically. It entered the U.S. last year and now operates a facility in Arizona, a move linked to avoiding tariffs and staying close to clients like Nvidia and Apple. Management is anticipating some short-term gross margin pressure from those investments, but CFO Wendell Huang said a higher level of capital expenditures is always correlated to higher growth opportunities in following years.

TSMC is often left out of the AI conversation despite being a critical, fast-growing and highly profitable part of it, and a bet on it is a low-risk, high-opportunity play. That is the writer's view, not a statement from the company.