Part 2/10:
Historically, companies designed and manufactured their own chips, a model that has become increasingly untenable. As the cost of establishing cutting-edge fabrication plants, or fabs, soared—with estimates of new leading-edge facilities costing upwards of $30-40 billion—many firms began outsourcing chip production to TSMC. This shift has allowed companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and even Intel to focus on design rather than manufacturing, essentially revolutionizing the semiconductor landscape.