March 4, 2024 /SemiMedia/ -- According to reports, TSMC founder Chang Chung-mou mentioned in a recent interview that some customers expressed the hope that TSMC can build ten new wafer fabs for artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

The report pointed out that due to the booming demand for AI processors, NVIDIA was unable to meet the market demand for GPUs, so the market required suppliers to produce more processors.

TSMC is one of the few semiconductor manufacturers in the world with a monthly production capacity of about 100,000 wafers, but the cost of building a large-scale wafer fab is very high. A large-scale 3nm process wafer fab, fully built and equipped, may cost more than $20 billion and require many years of construction time. The cost of ten advanced wafer fabs will exceed US$200 billion, excluding supply chain support and infrastructure costs. Therefore, even TSMC cannot afford it.

The report revealed that TSMC’s capital expenditure in 2024 is US$28 billion to US$32 billion, so it is unable to build so many wafer fabs in the short term. However, production can be expected to increase within a reasonable range to meet market demand.