The world’s largest chipmaker has warned that inflation is pushing up its costs and did not rule out passing those increases on to customers — a move that could eventually raise the price of everything from smartphones to AI infrastructure.
In a rare interview at the company’s headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan, TSMC’s chief financial officer Wendell Huang told the BBC that rising costs were a concern. “Inflation, yes, did cause [our] costs to increase,” he said, though he stopped short of committing to price rises. Earlier in the day, the company’s chairman and chief executive CC Wei told shareholders that he would “like” to raise prices, as competitors have done.
“TSMC CFO says inflation is raising costs and does not rule out price rises, which could increase electronics prices.”
TSMC makes the most advanced chips used by Nvidia, AMD and Apple, meaning any increase could ripple through the tech supply chain. Huang insisted the firm would not impose sudden “fourfold, fivefold” price rises, adding: “We reflect our value,” pointing to the company’s “technology leadership” and “manufacturing excellence”.
The interview came at a time of escalating US-China trade tensions, with Washington pressing chipmakers to expand production in the US to secure supply chains. TSMC is building plants in Arizona, Germany and Japan, but Huang pushed back against the idea that this expansion was driven by geopolitical pressure. “We go out of Taiwan to build capacity based on customers’ demand. The customers want us to go there. It’s not the request of government,” he said.
Huang was clear, however, that the most cutting-edge production will remain in Taiwan. Moving the entire manufacturing ecosystem to the US, he said, would take “five or 10 years, or even longer” — a timeline that directly challenges the ambitions of US industrial policy, which has pushed TSMC to commit $165bn to its Arizona operations.
Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims, produces the majority of the world’s most advanced chips — the tiny processors inside smartphones, laptops and AI data centres. Chinese President Xi Jinping warned at a recent summit with US President Donald Trump that mishandling Taiwan could put the relationship between the two superpowers in an “extremely dangerous situation”.
Despite the geopolitical backdrop, Huang denied that the AI boom was a bubble. The firm is expanding manufacturing in Taiwan as well as abroad, and remains confident in demand for its technology.