By Brett Schafer, The Motley Fool
Publication Date: 2026-10-04 08:20:00
By now, everyone and their mother knows computer chips are the key to the artifical intelligence (AI) boom. No chips, no training of advanced AI, or running them on billions of computers worldwide. This has brought Intel back from the dead and made Nvidia the most valuable company in the world by market cap.
There are plenty of underfollowed gems in the computer chip sector, many of which are not well known to the general public. One is the backbone of the entire advanced computer chip manufacturing, powering AI training. The company’s name is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM), or just TSMC for short.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
Here’s why the $2.4 trillion market-cap stock is the ultimate pick-and-shovel play for the AI revolution.
Nvidia’s supplier and dominant leader in chipmaking
Most of the largest technology companies in the world contract with TSMC for chipmaking. Nvidia does not manufacture its own chips; it instead sends its designs to TSMC, the only company in the world that can produce them at scale. Even Intel has been forced to outsource some of its advanced chipmaking to TSMC.
Hyperscalers use TSMC for contract manufacturing of their…
