Taiwan’s chipmaking giant TSMC to invest $1B in Anthropic, OpenAI

TSMC's board approved investing up to $500 million in OpenAI preferred stock reserved for large investors and another $500 million to buy Anthropic common shares at its expected IPO price, according to Reuters. The investments would give the Taiwanese chipmaker direct stakes in leading AI developers, even as its contract chipmaking business has profited enormously from the AI data center buildout. Analysts warned that such circular financing among investors, suppliers and customers has made it difficult to evaluate real market demand for AI-related hardware and services, per The Wall Street Journal.