Asia Still Dominates Chips
Taiwan controls over 80% of logic chips and South Korea supplies 80–90% of high-bandwidth memory, while SMIC is pushing “above-average growth” with capacity and investment moves to seize AI demand. Asian chip funds have outperformed peers—one fund returned about 45% over the past year—underscoring regional concentration and pricing power. (finance.yahoo.com) (scmp.com)
TSMC reported it accounted for 34% of the “Foundry 2.0” industry output in 2024 and said it manufactured 11,878 distinct products for 522 customers that year. (investor.tsmc.com) Taiwan held an outsized share of the most advanced logic capacity — about 92% of capacity at ≤10nm — while Taiwan-headquartered TSMC’s foundry revenue share climbed to roughly 64% in 2024. (economyinsights.com) The global High‑Bandwidth Memory market is functionally an oligopoly: SK hynix’s share is roughly 50–55%, Samsung about 35–40% and Micron around 5–10%, leaving only three HBM suppliers worldwide. (siliconanalysts.com) China’s largest foundry, SMIC, published an action plan on March 27, 2026 setting a target of “above‑average growth” and calling for measures to “optimise existing stock and dig for new increments.” (scmp.com) SMIC’s own reporting shows rising scale: its Feb. 10, 2026 results flagged record 2025 revenues, management has signalled plans to lift capacity by roughly 40,000 12‑inch wafer equivalents per month by end‑2026, and the company has previously outlined multibillion‑dollar capex targets to fund new fabs. (smics.com) A broadly referenced Asian tech fund cited by Yahoo Finance held about US$4.6 billion in assets at the end of February 2026 and posted a 6.8% gain so far in 2026, reflecting concentrated exposure to regional chip leaders. (finance.yahoo.com) HBM capacity expansion takes 12–18 months and industry reports project demand outpacing supply through at least 2026, conditions that preserve short‑term pricing power for the handful of HBM suppliers. (siliconanalysts.com)
