TSMC guides 2026 capex at $52–$56B, flags elevated FY27 plans

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said on April 16 that 2026 capital spending will land near the high end of its record $52 billion-$56 billion range. (investor.tsmc.com) (scmp.com) The guidance came with first-quarter revenue of $35.9 billion, up 40.6% from a year earlier, gross margin of 66.2%, and second-quarter revenue guidance of $39.0 billion to $40.2 billion. (investor.tsmc.com 1) (investor.tsmc.com 2) Chief executive C.C. Wei said capex for the next three years will be “significantly higher” than the past three years, signaling that 2027 and 2028 investment plans are still rising with customer demand. (scmp.com) (investor.tsmc.com) Capex is the money a chipmaker spends on fabs, clean rooms, and lithography tools before a single chip ships. At TSMC, that budget now tracks the build-out needed for 3-nanometer, 2-nanometer, and advanced packaging lines used in artificial-intelligence servers and premium phones. (investor.tsmc.com) (industrialinfo.com) The revenue mix shows why the spending is climbing. High-performance computing, the category that includes many artificial-intelligence chips, rose to 61% of first-quarter revenue, while smartphones fell to 26%. (scmp.com) (investor.tsmc.com) TSMC’s own quarterly data show 3-nanometer chips contributed 25% of wafer revenue in the quarter, while 5-nanometer chips contributed 36% and 7-nanometer chips 13%. Advanced nodes of 7 nanometers and below made up 74% of wafer revenue. (investor.tsmc.com) Management also said it is “pulling in all equipment” it can to accelerate supply, with new 3-nanometer volume production planned in Tainan and Arizona in 2027. (scmp.com) That matters beyond Taiwan. TSMC is already building out Fab 21 in Phoenix, and industry trackers say the company has more than $150 billion of active and planned U.S. projects tied to that campus expansion. (industrialinfo.com) The company’s April 16 update did not publicly confirm the specific 2027 spending range or 180,000-wafer 3-nanometer target circulating in supply-chain reports. What it did confirm is the direction: record 2026 capex, a higher medium-term spending path, and demand still outrunning supply. (investor.tsmc.com) (trendforce.com)