⚠ A Neutral Rival Could Claim the Same GroundModerate threat

The pure-play trust advantage is structural, but it is not unique by law of nature — a rival that credibly committed to foundry neutrality could, in principle, claim the same ground. Intel has explicitly restructured to stand up 'Intel Foundry' as a separate business¹ meant to serve external customers as a neutral manufacturer, and if it ever established genuine separation and trust (and closed the technology gap), it could offer fabless designers a second conflict-free, leading-edge source. So far the outside world has barely come: Intel's 10-K says it has "few external customers to date", and external customers paid Intel Foundry $307 million in 2025 against $17.5 billion of intersegment revenue from Intel itself². Samsung, too, keeps its foundry somewhat separate from its product divisions. The trust moat is powerful, but it rests on a business model others can attempt to adopt.

In practice, the obstacles are formidable: Intel still sells its own chips, so its 'neutrality' is inherently suspect, and customers remain wary of handing designs to a company that competes with them; Samsung's conflict is even more direct. And neutrality alone is worthless without the technology and yield to back it, which the rivals lack. So the trust advantage is well-defended today. But an investor should recognize that pure-play neutrality is a business model, not a patent — the industry has understood its value since TSMC proved it, and TSMC's rivals are actively trying to replicate it. The moat holds because no competitor has combined credible neutrality with leading-edge capability, not because such a combination is impossible. Should one ever emerge, the trust that is now TSMC's alone would have to be shared.