TSMC lifts the lid on chip pricing: what changes for PCs and smartphones

At its third-quarter earnings presentation, TSMC addressed the price adjustments coming to AI accelerators and advanced packaging — and confirmed that agentic AI is pushing CPU demand higher.

On Thursday, October 15, 2026, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) presented its latest financial results, covering the third quarter of the year. Among other things, the company addressed price adjustments for AI accelerators and advanced packaging. What emerged? Confirmation that demand for CPUs tied to agentic AI keeps growing.

The consequence is that advanced packaging capacity has become critical to shipping chips at all. Wafer production has to be planned in parallel, since any bottleneck there could affect delivery times. That is precisely why the company has strengthened its partnerships with packaging and foundry partners such as ASE, SPIL, Powertech, Amkor, GlobalFoundries and Vanguard International Semiconductor.

Agentic AI is driving CPU demand

TSMC’s bargaining power comes first of all from demand for advanced manufacturing processes, from the availability of production capacity, from process maturity, and from the switching costs customers face in moving to another supplier.

TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei also said that AI demand remains extremely high. In particular, the company has observed growth in CPU demand linked to generative AI. For that reason, the industry leader has folded the main relevant factors into its supply and demand assessments.

What does that mean in practice? TSMC will continue to monitor the different types of chips and the product mixes involved as it plans future production capacity. Taking into account the expansion of AI compute from CPUs and AI accelerators to CPUs and other data-center chips, demand for advanced processes could rise as well. For the end consumer, the consequence could be higher prices for PCs and smartphones.

What TSMC is earning

TSMC’s gross margin in the third quarter of 2026 came in at 66.4%, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous quarter. The company expects a gross margin of between 65% and 67% in the fourth quarter, with a midpoint of 66%.

A key role will be played by the company’s expansion abroad, a crucial element in winning still more orders and meeting customers’ regional production needs. The new plants to be built will nonetheless have to work through investment and ramp-up periods.

For customers, the continuing shifts in foundry prices will feed through to the cost of producing devices and, as a result, to list prices on the shelf. That is especially true for products from companies with tighter profit margins and less bargaining power. Big Tech, by contrast, could absorb part of the increase through product diversification or long-term supply agreements.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Pasquale Conte on October 16, 2026 as «TSMC alza il velo sui prezzi e conferma che l’AI agentica fa impennare la domanda di CPU». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.