Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has publicly claimed that the company has become Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s largest customer, coinciding with new rumors of a shift in the foundry’s relationship with Apple. In a conversation with Jodi Shelton on her “A Bit Personal with…” podcast, Huang joked about his management style before stating that Morris Chang “will be happy to know (that) Nvidia is TSMC’s largest customer now.” This comment aligns with emerging reports that Taiwan’s leading contract chip manufacturer may be rebalancing its supply priorities away from Apple, which has long been regarded as having preferred access to the firm’s most advanced process technologies.
Speculation about the changing dynamics surfaced via the “Fixed-focus Digital Cameras” account on Chinese social platform Weibo, which described a recent trip to the United States by TSMC chief executive Che-Chia Wei. The short blog post alleged that the TSMC leader went to “Apple HQ (in order) to demand the largest price increase in recent years, and Apple may no longer enjoy priority production capacity. TSMC’s largest customer is now Nvidia, accounting for nearly 13% of total revenue.” According to these claims, both Nvidia and Apple are competing for unhindered access to 2 nm wafer production, with Nvidia said to have an advantage, a position that is portrayed as being fueled by its strong performance in the Artificial Intelligence enterprise market.
Despite talk of reduced priority, Apple is still reported to have locked in a substantial portion of TSMC’s next generation output. Industry sources cited in the report state that Apple has secured around half of TSMC’s 2 nm manufacturing capacity, which is expected to support upcoming A20 and A20 Pro smartphone processors. At the same time, Apple is said to be developing its own server oriented Artificial Intelligence silicon, described as an inference-only “Baltra” GPU project. Informants claim this future chip is planned for a TSMC 3 nm node, with the choice reportedly narrowed to the N3E or N3P variants, suggesting that Apple is preparing a longer term response to the surge in demand for Artificial Intelligence hardware that is currently benefiting Nvidia.
