Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said in an interview that Nvidia is TSMC’s largest customer at the moment, dethroning Apple, which has previously held the record for some time. The leather-clad CEO said this during the first episode of the “A Bit Personal with Jodi Shelton” podcast, wherein Shelton asked him where he gets his confidence. Shelton is a self-proclaimed "longtime leader in the global semiconductor industry," and is also the CEO and co-founder of the Global Semiconductor Alliance.
“I remember Morris Chang has a similar story when he first met you, that you immediately said, ‘I’m going to be your biggest customer or one of your biggest customers. And he’s like, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of gumption.’ So, where did that confidence come from at such an early age?” Shelton asked. “Well, you know, it’s rough to know everything — I’m just kidding,” Jensen said with a laugh. “By the way, Morris will be happy to know Nvidia is TSMC’s largest customer now.”
The AI GPU company was once TSMC’s top customer in the early 2000s. However, it was overtaken during the 2010s by Apple when TSMC took it on as a customer to build the iPhone and iPad processors, after Intel fumbled the potential partnership with Cupertino. This was especially true during recent years when the iPhone overtook Samsung in market share across the globe.
But even if Apple’s smartphones, tablets, and even the legendary Apple silicon on Macs and MacBooks are driving record sales for the company, the AI boom is also pushing demand for Nvidia’s AI GPUs, resulting in skyrocketing revenue for the company. More than that, enterprise customers are willing to pay billions and billions to Team Green to get as many AI processors as they can, whereas many consumers have a price ceiling after which they will go with another brand if a smartphone, tablet, or laptop is priced too high.
Aside from losing its top spot, there are also rumors — reported by WCCFTech from the Apple leaker Fixed Focus Digital — that TSMC is hiking up the prices it’s charging Apple for chips, especially as the AI demand is squeezing capacity for other semiconductors. Furthermore, Cupertino might no longer have production priority. However, this is just speculation, and even if it’s true, the companies will likely keep information like this confidential.
Nvidia’s success is directly tied to the AI hype, with many tech companies pouring money into acquiring thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of GPUs just to get the horsepower to train the most advanced models. And with Team Green cornering the market for AI processors, it’s basically printing cash as long as companies feel that they can make more money by adding more computing power. But if the AI bubble pops and we’re left with a lot of AI data centers with no customers, then we expect Apple to retake its position as TSMC’s number one customer.
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