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MacroSnaps2 October 2026
No. 83

Nine in ten of the world's most advanced chips are made on a single island.

Estimated share of the world's most advanced logic chip output, by country, 2019 to 2026. Taiwan (orange) has held close to nine in ten for years; the only real change is a sliver returning to the United States as new fabs open. Figures are rounded estimates.
The orange band is Taiwan. It has been almost the whole cutting edge for years.
Taiwan88%(2026)South Korea8%(2026)United States4%(2026)

Estimated share of the world's most advanced logic chip output, by country, 2019 to 2026. Taiwan (orange) has held close to nine in ten for years; the only real change is a sliver returning to the United States as new fabs open. Figures are rounded estimates.

Who makes the cutting edge
TSMC (Taiwan)Samsung (South Korea)Intel (United States)

At the leading edge, each country is essentially one company. Intel led a decade ago, fell behind, and is now trying to climb back.

Why this is happening
  • Making cutting-edge chips is one of the hardest things humans do. TSMC spent decades and tens of billions perfecting it, and pulled ahead for good when Intel stumbled on its 10nm node and never recovered the lead.
  • One by one the others dropped out. GlobalFoundries and UMC gave up the leading edge in 2018, leaving only TSMC, Samsung and a fading Intel.
  • The tools, materials and engineers then clustered around TSMC on the island, which makes the lead even harder to copy.
  • The US and Europe offshored chip-making years ago and are only now, expensively, clawing some back, with TSMC's Arizona fabs and Intel's new node just starting up.
The take

Every phone, AI model and weapon system depends on chips from one island that China claims as its own. It is the single biggest concentration of risk in the world economy.

Source: TrendForce, company filings, industry estimates (2026)
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The underlying data

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