The chipmaker takes equity in the AI labs that buy its processors, alongside a $40.9 billion capacity budget.
TSMC's board approved up to $500 million for Anthropic common shares at the company's initial public offering price, and up to $500 million for OpenAI preferred stock. The same meeting cleared about $40.9 billion in capital spending and a NT$9.0 per-share quarterly dividend.
TSMC has sold chips to AI firms without owning them. The stakes put the Hsinchu-based manufacturer inside the companies whose model training drives demand for its most advanced processors, and give it a claim on their growth beyond foundry fees.
Why it matters
TSMC now earns from AI twice: as the manufacturer of the chips and as a shareholder in the labs buying them.
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The word anthropic within a purple circle and abstract shapes
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Beyond Frontlines
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Curated perspectives — historical figures and your fellow readers.
Fictional AI pastiche — not real quote.
"The canny manufacturer does not stop at selling the shovel; he takes a claim in the very mine that drives the digging. TSMC’s stake in those who hunger for its silicon is plain good sense—though I’d have asked for a seat at the table, not merely a share of the pickings."
The world's largest contract chipmaker, based in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Maker of the Claude AI models, preparing one of the largest stock market debuts on record.
Developer of ChatGPT and the GPT model family.
June 2026 November 2026
Up to $500 million each for Anthropic common shares and OpenAI preferred stock.
Shares are offered at $70 to $78, setting the price TSMC would pay.
Quarterly revenue reaches NT$1,494.24 billion and net income NT$763.06 billion.
Anthropic moves toward a Nasdaq listing expected within weeks.
OpenAI submits a confidential listing application but sets no date.
Discussed by: Reuters and CNA, citing the board approval
Anthropic's shares are expected to begin trading as early as the week of November 16. If the IPO clears at $70 to $78 per share, TSMC's $500 million ceiling buys roughly 6.4 million to 7.1 million shares. The purchase converts a board approval into an owned position.
Discussed by: Nikkei and Reuters, noting OpenAI has not set a listing date
OpenAI filed confidentially in June but has said no date is fixed. TSMC's $500 million is approved for preferred stock, which can be sold privately before a listing. If the IPO slips past mid-2027, the investment may close as a private placement or not at all.
Discussed by: Venture Atlas and 工商時報, citing the $500 million investment company approval
The board also approved up to $500 million to set up an investment company for semiconductor and ecosystem deals. If TSMC uses it, the Anthropic and OpenAI stakes become the first positions in a broader portfolio rather than one-off bets.
2 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.
Intel, Samsung and TSMC each bought minority stakes in ASML as part of the Dutch lithography maker's customer co-investment program. The money helped fund extreme ultraviolet lithography, the technology now required for leading-edge chips.
The stakes gave the chipmakers early access to EUV tools and a voice in ASML's development priorities.
ASML became the sole supplier of EUV lithography, and the 2012 arrangement is still cited as a template for supplier-customer equity ties.
TSMC is again using equity to lock in a relationship with a bottleneck technology, this time on the demand side rather than the supply side.
Microsoft committed billions of dollars to OpenAI across several funding rounds. The deal gave OpenAI access to Microsoft's Azure cloud and gave Microsoft preferential access to OpenAI's models.
OpenAI trained its models on Azure, and Microsoft integrated OpenAI's technology into its products.
The arrangement made Microsoft the dominant cloud partner for a leading AI lab and showed how compute providers could convert infrastructure into equity.
TSMC is making a smaller version of the same bet: that owning part of an AI lab secures demand for the infrastructure it sells.