Bots vs Phones in Two Charts
[Opinion] The trend for high-performance computing can be seen in a custom index based on TSMC earnings data
Good Morning from Taipei,
This week’s earnings from TSMC provided a wealth of data. Yesterday I wrote about what I see as being warning signs for Apple.
The flip side of that equation is high-performance computing. Not all HPC chips are AI chips — the category includes both GPUs and CPUs — but clearly the boom in generative AI added to earlier momentum which came from cloud services and streaming.
TSMC doesn’t say exactly how much revenue it gets from each sector, but it gives enough hints. This includes providing percentage contribution as well as quarter-on-quarter growth by platform. Collating and analyzing this data allowed me to create an index, which I have anchored to 3Q 2022, with an upper and lower bound to where revenue has likely tracked.
The first thing to notice is just how cyclical smartphones are. That’s largely because Apple is TSMC’s largest client, and the 3Q release of the iPhone is a major driver of revenue for both companies. It’s also interesting that HPC hasn’t been particularly cyclical. It did dip briefly but the trajectory is clear.
I thought that’s pretty interesting and worth sharing.
Thanks for reading.
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