The tech industry is moving faster than ever. Keep up with Tom’s Hardware Premium, available from just $7 per month

The tech industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, especially in semiconductor manufacturing and hardware infrastructure. Driven by the explosive growth of the artificial intelligence sector, com... Read original →

The AI compute arms race is triggering a deep restructuring of semiconductor manufacturing. Sub-3nm nodes have turned EUV lithography from an option into a lifeline, with ASML’s constrained output directly throttling TSMC and Intel’s capacity expansion and inflating AI chip foundry costs. Upstream materials—like high-purity argon fluoride and rare earths—are becoming geopolitical flashpoints, amplifying supply chain fragility. NVIDIA’s full-stack dominance forces AMD to accelerate chiplet innovation, while Intel bets on its IFS model to anchor U.S. hyperscalers. Over the next 18 months, CHIPS Act subsidies will likely create structural overcapacity outside China, yet advanced packaging and HBM memory will emerge as the next choke points. Hardware intelligence platforms must evolve beyond benchmarks into real-time supply chain sentinels.