Is 30% of TSMC's Advanced Chip Capacity in the U.S. Enough? Former Chairman Mark Liu Weighs In

Hello everyone,

On Tuesday evening, former TSMC Chairman Mark Liu（劉德音） delivered a lecture titled “Technological Leadership in Semiconductors—An Endless Pursuit” as part of the Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series organized by National Taiwan University’s Alumni Center.

It was also his first public appearance in Taiwan since retiring two years ago.

No longer constrained by his position as chairman of a publicly traded company, Liu spoke candidly on a number of important industry issues during the more than two-hour lecture and subsequent Q&A session.

Here, I have compiled and analyzed several highlights for readers.

Read on for this week’s newsletter.

One more reminder.

In just over a month, on December 13, we will hold our annual subscriber gathering. All the speakers are good friends who have previously appeared on the TechTaiwan podcast, including Darwin Venture Management（達盈管理顧問公司） co-founder Simon Fang（方頌仁）, Neuberger Berman（路博邁） Head of Research Sebastian Hou（侯明孝）, and Fortune Electric America（美國華城） General Manager Alex Hsu（許逸民）, as well as myself.

The results of this year’s U.S. midterm elections have unexpectedly triggered a sharp selloff in AI stocks, throwing what had previously been an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook for next year into serious doubt.

Join us at the annual gathering to weather the uncertainty together. In addition to presentations from our speakers, we will set aside an hour for Q&A.

From the latest macro-level shifts across the industry and the realities of U.S. power infrastructure to Silicon Valley’s AI hardware renaissance, we will have an entire afternoon to explore these topics in depth.