It kinda does resemble a natural resource though. The machines and technology in use at TSMC are so insanely complex, that there isn't a single person on earth who knows everything about how it works. TSMC functions only because of all of the pieces of the puzzle being together in the right place and arranged in just the right way. It's a very fragile balance that keeps it all running, and a major disruption could mean we get thrown back by a decade in chip-making technology.

> I am surprised we consider TSMC like a natural resource: isn't it really a combination of know-how and build-out according to that know-how?

Have you seen how many states and countries look enviously at Silicon Valley’s tech companies, China’s manufacturing dominance, or London’s financial sector and try to replicate them?

Turns out it’s way harder than you’d expect.

Hell, Intel can’t match TSMC despite decades of expertise, much greater fame, and regulators happy to change the law and hand out tens of billions in subsidies.

What you say is absolutely true, and is a serious problem—but the way our system operates does not allow us to correct for it.

Anyone trying to spin up a competitor to TSMC would have to first overcome a significant financial hurdle: the capital investment to build all the industrial equipment needed for fabrication.

Then they'd have to convince institutions to choose them over TSMC when they're unproven, and likely objectively worse than TSMC, given that they would not have its decades of experience and process optimization.

This would be mitigated somewhat if our institutions had common-sense rules in place requiring multiple vendors for every part of their supply chain—note, not just "multiple bids, leading to picking a single vendor" but "multiple vendors actively supplying them at all times". But our system prioritizes efficiency over resiliency.

A wealthy nation-state with a sufficiently motivated voter base could certainly build up a meaningful competitor to TSMC over the course of, say, a decade or two (or three...). But it would require sustained investment at all levels—and not just investment in the simple financial sense; it requires people investing their time in education and research. Dedicating their lives to making the best chips in the world. And the only reason that would work is that it defies our system, and chooses to invest in plants that won't be finished for years, and then pay for chips that they know are inferior in quality, because they're our chips, and paying for them when they're lower quality is the only way to get them to be the best chips in the world.