On May 11, news that Apple was cooperating with Intel and Samsung Electronics to produce chips for its devices attracted attention. Bloomberg’s well-known Apple reporter Mark Gurman published an article on Sunday, revealing the reasons behind Apple’s move.
First, Apple tends to have multiple suppliers for any key component. It's been doing this for decades on components like displays, storage, and memory. But the situation with processors is more complicated because TSMC is the far-reaching market leader in chip manufacturing technology.
However, the situation has become more difficult now: the supply of chips has become increasingly tight, and TSMC's new factory in Arizona is progressing slower than originally planned.
In addition, the outside world has long been worried that Apple's chip supply is overly dependent on Taiwan, which poses geopolitical risks.
As a result, Apple is looking for alternatives, talking to Intel and Samsung about producing some of its chips in the United States. Although there will be no substantial progress in the short term, Apple may introduce at least one of them as a supplier in the next year.