A Three-Legged Stool of Power
This whole ecosystem, I think, rests on a sort of three-legged stool. First, you have NVIDIA, the designer darlings who create the brains of the operation, the GPUs that AI models crave. Then there’s Taiwan Semiconductor, or TSMC, the master builders who take NVIDIA’s blueprints and turn them into silicon reality. They are the world’s foundry, and frankly, without them, the lights go out.
The third leg is perhaps the most fascinating, ASML. These folks make the one piece of equipment so absurdly advanced, the lithography machines, that modern chipmaking is simply impossible without them. They have a complete monopoly. It’s a beautifully simple, if terrifyingly fragile, supply chain. When Applied Materials thrives, it signals that this entire trio is gearing up for a very busy couple of years.