TSMC CEO C.C. Wei has admitted that the company will not be able to meet customer demand for the next few years. This is despite TSMC opening many new factories, the capacity is still not enough to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence.
Wei stressed that TSMC will not raise prices sharply, which is different from the memory market, for the sake of long-term stability. TSMC still expects sales growth of 30% this year despite continued capacity constraints. The move is certainly pleasing to TSMC customers, unlike Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, which have had to “fight” and spend heavily to ensure that memory supplies are not interrupted.
TSMC has a fabrication plant at TSMC in Arizona, but production capacity has been fully booked until 2027 since early 2025. The company has approved a $20 billion capital injection to accelerate the construction of Phase 2 of Fab 21. As a result, mass production of 3nm chips in Arizona is expected to begin in 2027, a year earlier than the original 2028 schedule.
The high demand but limited production capacity at TSMC has given Samsung and Intel an opportunity to gain customers. Apple, for example, is reportedly using Intel's factories for its chips, while Tesla is using Samsung's factories to meet its production demands.
