The Journy of Artificial Intelligence Begins at TSMC

June 2025

In the artificial intelligence world, names like OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Google often dominate the headlines. But look beneath the software, the models, and the chips—and you’ll find a single, indispensable player at the heart of the AI revolution: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

While TSMC doesn’t make headlines with flashy applications such as ChatGPT, chatbots or humanoid robots, it’s the foundry that fabricates the demanding hardware where the future of AI quite literally takes shape. The journey of AI, from algorithm to supercomputer, begins at the ultra-clean integrated circuit fabrication foundry of TSMC in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

One of the biggest drivers behind the AI boom is the exponential growth in computing power, made possible by the relentless shrinkage of transistors. TSMC has led the industry in this pursuit, being the first to mass-produce 5nm chips and now scaling up 3nm production, with 2nm nodes in development and 1.4nm on the horizon.

These advanced nodes are critical for AI. Smaller transistors mean more processing power and energy efficiency in the same area—essential for training and running today’s large-scale AI models, which can involve hundreds of billions of parameters. Simply put, the computational horsepower demanded by models like GPT-4 or NVIDIA’s latest generative AI breakthroughs ever exists only because TSMC manufacture chips small, fast, and dense enough to handle them.

But raw transistor count isn’t everything. TSMC’s provides advanced multi-chip packaging technologies that redefine how multiple chips are built into a single package. Technologies like TSMC’s CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) and InFO (Integrated Fan-Out) are behind many of the multi-chip modules powering today’s AI accelerators.

Take NVIDIA’s H100 and the Blackwell chips—they rely on TSMC’s ability to tightly integrate high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and multiple dies into a single package. This not only boosts performance but also helps manage heat and power more efficiently, meeting demand of the parallel processing AI models.

For AI workloads, where memory bandwidth is often the bottleneck, TSMC’s packaging innovations are as important as silicon itself. The advanced packaging technology improves high-speed interconnectivity and thermal management needed for real-time inference, deep learning, and generative AI tasks at hyperscale levels.

If you want to know where the future of AI is heading, look at TSMC’s customer list. It includes adversary major AI players like:

• NVIDIA: The undisputed leader in AI hardware uses TSMC’s 5nm and 4nm processes for its latest GPUs.
• Apple: While not traditionally seen as an AI powerhouse, Apple’s on-device AI initiatives—like in Siri, Vision Pro, and neural engines—depend on TSMC’s      bleeding-edge nodes.
• AMD: With its MI300 AI accelerators, AMD is challenging NVIDIA head-on, and like its rival, it relies on TSMC for advanced manufacturing and      packaging.
• Amazon, Google, and Microsoft: All are designing custom AI chips (like AWS Trainium or Google’s TPU) that TSMC fabricates.

Even OpenAI, which develops foundational AI models, ultimately relies on hardware produced by TSMC to train and deploy those advanced AI models—whether directly or through its tight partnership with Microsoft and its Azure AI supercomputers.

What sets TSMC apart isn’t just its cutting-edge facilities, it’s the strategic role it plays in enabling AI’s growth. TSMC is not just a supplier; it is an innovation partner, working closely with its customers to tailor manufacturing processes to meet unique AI workloads and timelines. This co-development partnership has allowed AI chip designers to iterate faster, push limits more aggressively, and bring game-changing technology more quickly than ever before.

As the world races toward more intelligent systems, from autonomous vehicles to general-purpose AI, the foundational technology behind them all must keep pace. And while AI is revolutionizing the future, it’s TSMC that quietly builds it— one nanometer transistor at a time.

The AI journey begins not with code, but with silicon at TSMC.