Chips · Oct 20, 2026, 05:13
TSMC Inspects US Data Centers as 3nm Hits 33% of Wafer Sales
TSMC now sends teams to check US data-center construction and power before planning capacity, as 3nm hit 33% of Q3 wafer revenue and new fabs line up.
Chip supply and grid power are now linked.
Illustration (AI-generated)
Hsinchu, Taiwan, Oct. 15 — TSMC told investors on its third-quarter call that it now sends its own teams to check the construction progress and power supply of US data centers as part of capacity planning, and said the feedback so far shows cloud providers are well prepared.
The Technical Details
CEO C.C. Wei said TSMC weighs customer spending, data-center construction, financing, power availability and supply-chain limits when it decides how much capacity to build. Analysts Ben Bajarin and Jay Goldberg, discussing the call on The Circuit, singled out the site visits as the strongest demand signal of the cycle, BigGo Finance reported.
The numbers behind that confidence were large. TSMC posted Q3 revenue of $46.72 billion and guided Q4 to $52.3 billion to $54.3 billion, with full-year 2026 growth now expected at about 44% in US dollar terms. Wei said demand for leading-edge nodes still outruns what TSMC can supply.
To meet it, TSMC is converting 5nm tools in Taiwan to 3nm, a break from its habit of freezing a node once capacity hits target. It also added another 3nm fab in Tainan, pulled forward its second Arizona fab and kept its 2026 capital budget at $60 billion to $64 billion.
