Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC will invest about $1 billion in the two largest AI labs. According to Reuters, as cited by Ars Technica, the board approved an investment of up to $500 million in OpenAI preferred stock reserved for large investors, and another $500 million to buy Anthropic common shares at its expected IPO price.
TSMC's fabs produce most of Nvidia's AI data center chips and most of Apple's chips. Anthropic and OpenAI buy huge amounts of hardware made by TSMC, so analysts cited by The Wall Street Journal describe the deal as another example of "circular" financing between suppliers and customers that makes real demand harder to judge.
TSMC has the means: it has reported six consecutive quarters of record profit, including more than $23 billion in the July–September 2026 quarter. The investment is small next to Nvidia's, which has so far put $30 billion into OpenAI and $10 billion into Anthropic.