Mapping global dependencies across the semiconductor supply chain powering the ~$500B AI chip market, 2026–2030
The AI chip buildout is not a two-player game between the US and China. It's a six-node chain where Taiwan fabricates, South Korea provides memory, Japan supplies critical materials, Europe holds the equipment monopoly, and the US designs. Disruption at any single node cascades across the entire system. China is building a parallel, inferior stack — fast enough for mature chips, but structurally locked out of leading-edge AI silicon through 2030.
| Country | Role in AI Chip Stack | Substitutability | 2026 Position | 2030 Trajectory | Key Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇹🇼 Taiwan | Fabrication monopoly. 92% leading-edge, 83% AI chips, 66% foundry revenue. CoWoS packaging bottleneck. | Peak dominance. 2nm entering mass production. CoWoS doubling to 660K wafers. | Share dips to ~55% of advanced nodes as US fabs ramp, but remains 80%+ of cutting-edge. | Cross-strait conflict / earthquake / energy constraints | |
| 🇰🇷 S. Korea | Memory fortress. 70% DRAM, 53% NAND, 88% HBM. SK Hynix sole primary Nvidia HBM supplier. | HBM4 ramp. SK Hynix dominant. Samsung recovering. $470B cluster plan underway. | Maintains 65–70% HBM. Micron gains share but Korea retains structural lead. | Samsung execution gaps / Micron capacity expansion / CXMT long-term | |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | "Hidden layer." 96% resist processing, 95% wafer machining, 91% EUV masks, 88% coaters. Upstream monopoly. | Rapidus 2nm pilot. Micron HBM fab in Hiroshima. TSMC Kumamoto fab operational. | Retains materials monopoly. Gains ~2–3% fab capacity via Rapidus + foreign fabs. | Rapidus viability / aging workforce / earthquake risk | |
| 🇺🇸 United States | Design hegemon. 50%+ global chip revenue. Nvidia/AMD/Broadcom = AI chip architecture. EDA dominance (Synopsys, Cadence). | TSMC Arizona Fab 1 operational. Intel 18A launching. 0% → ~10% leading-edge logic. | Target 20–28% of advanced logic. But still depends on Taiwan for ~70%+ of volume. | Intel foundry execution / talent shortage (~67K workers) / cost overruns | |
| 🇨🇳 China | Largest consumer (42% of equipment spend). SMIC at 7nm via DUV multi-patterning. Huawei Ascend AI chips. Mature node flooding. | ~30% self-sufficiency. SMIC 7nm limited volume. No EUV access. Big Fund III ($47.5B). | 50–60% self-sufficiency in mature nodes. ~21% global fab capacity. Still locked out of sub-5nm. | EUV embargo / yield ceilings / talent drain / overcapacity glut | |
| 🇪🇺 Europe | Equipment gatekeeper (ASML 100% EUV). Strong in automotive/power semis (Infineon, STMicro). IP provider (ARM). R&D hub (IMEC). | ~8% global fab capacity. 0% leading-edge logic. €43B EU Chips Act underperforming. Intel Magdeburg stalled. | 8% capacity (20% target unrealistic). 0–6% leading-edge. Retains ASML monopoly as strategic leverage. | Policy fragmentation / Intel Germany collapse / talent gap (1M workers needed) |
Sources: TrendForce, SIA/BCG, GAO. Leading-edge defined as 16/14nm and below. Bars show 2030 projected share; faded bars show 2024 baseline where applicable.
A blockade or conflict would halt 92% of leading-edge chip production. IEP estimates $10T global GDP impact. No substitute capacity exists — TSMC Arizona can't offset even 10% of Taiwan's output. AI training buildout stops cold for 2–3 years.
SK Hynix is sold out through 2026. Samsung lags on yields. Each Nvidia Blackwell GPU needs 8× HBM3E stacks. If HBM4 ramp slips, GPU shipments get gated by memory, not logic. Already happening — memory shortages projected through 2027.
TSMC's CoWoS is the physical assembly step that bonds HBM to GPU dies. Even at 660K wafers/year (2× from 2024), demand exceeds supply. This is why AMD, Google, and others face allocation limits. The bottleneck shifts from wafer to packaging.
Tighter controls could restrict ASML DUV sales to China, further constraining SMIC. But secondary effects matter: if Chinese fabs can't buy equipment, global equipment makers (ASML, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials) lose 30–40% of revenue.
China's mature-node capacity hits ~45% by 2030. This creates a global oversupply of automotive/industrial chips, destroying margins for UMC, GlobalFoundries, and legacy fabs worldwide. Doesn't impact AI directly but reshapes the industry's economics.
If Intel 18A underperforms, the US loses its only indigenous leading-edge foundry. The "20% by 2030" target becomes entirely dependent on TSMC Arizona — meaning the US "reshoring" is really Taiwanese reshoring, not domestic capacity-building.
The AI chip buildout's critical path runs through exactly three chokepoints: Taiwan's fabs (where the logic silicon is made), South Korea's memory (where HBM is produced), and Japan's materials (without which neither can operate). The US designs the chips and controls export policy. Europe holds the equipment monopoly via ASML. China is building fast but remains 2+ generations behind on the critical path.
The most important structural shift by 2030: the US moves from 0% to ~20% of leading-edge capacity, partially de-risking the Taiwan concentration. But "partially" is the operative word — TSMC will still fabricate the majority of the world's AI chips in 2030, and the AI buildout's pace will continue to be gated by Korean HBM supply and Taiwanese advanced packaging capacity, not by wafer fabrication alone.