AI chip race sends semiconductor equipment sales to record US$36.55 billion - digitimes

Global semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales reached a record US$36.55 billion in Q1 2026, driven by AI-related investments in advanced logic, DRAM, and advanced packaging capacity. This surge r... Read original →

The AI chip race is triggering a structural reshaping of semiconductor manufacturing. Surging demand for EUV and advanced packaging tools at 3nm and below is not only boosting orders for ASML and Lam Research but also forcing upstream segments—materials, metrology, inspection—to accelerate innovation cycles. TSMC in Taiwan, China, leverages its CoWoS capacity expansion to secure NVIDIA’s next-gen GPU orders, yet geopolitical friction inflates its overseas fab costs and supply chain redundancy. While U.S. CHIPS Act and EU subsidies spur near-term capex, they compel costly geographic diversification that extends ROI timelines. Samsung and Intel will likely counter with aggressive investments in HBM4 and 2nm nodes to capture AI training chip foundry share. Over the next 18 months, equipment lead times and talent scarcity—not capital—will be the true bottlenecks, with advanced packaging emerging as the strategic bypass around process-node constraints.