To The Moon

From Clouds to Foundries: Who Really Wins in the AI Chip Gold Rush? Clouds Are Fueling a Semiconductor Boom Cloud computing currently represents the highest ROI scenario for data center semiconductors. Against a backdrop of continued revenue growth in Q2, leading cloud companies have also ramped up their spending on data center chips. As the first of the new global cloud giants to report Q3 earnings, $Oracle(ORCL)$ has released strong forward guidance, further bolstering the high-growth outlook for the data center semiconductor sector. The market anticipates that the "big four" global AI chip leaders— $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ , $Broadcom(AVGO)$ , $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ , and $Intel(INTC)$ —will once again see a significant sequential increase in their data center-related revenues, setting new records in Q3. Selling Shovels in an AI Gold Rush—TSMC Three of the world's top four AI chip companies are fabless, requiring upstream foundries to manufacture their chips. Although Intel is an IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer), some of its products still rely on external foundry services. Consequently, foundries have become the "shovel sellers" in the AI chip gold rush. And behind these four AI chip companies stands one common shovel seller: $Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$. TSMC currently stands as the backbone for the world's leading AI chip companies. Whether it's Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, or even Intel with its own fabs, the majority of their AI chips depend on TSMC's advanced process capacity. Since 2024, TSMC has achieved six consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth, leading the world's top six semiconductor foundries. Yesterday, TSMC announced its latest revenue figures for August 2025, reporting a 34% year-over-year increase in NT dollars, sustaining its powerful momentum. Option Market Signals TSMC's options tape looks constructive rather than euphoric: total volume is heavy and a put/call ratio around 0.65 implies more call demand—typically read as mildly bullish on sentiment gauges like the PCR. Meanwhile IV (~36%) sits modestly above HV (~30%), so the market is pricing slightly larger forward swings than the stock has realized recently; yet an IV Rank near 7 and IV Percentile near 18 place today's IV toward the low end of its one-year range, i.e., contracts are inexpensive versus history. Notably, prior earnings windows showed the classic pre-event IV build and post-report "vol crush"—a pattern to watch into the next catalyst. Summary As the designated shovel seller in this wave of AI investment, the growth potential for foundries will be directly determined by their future AI revenue exposure. @TigerStars @CaptainTiger @TigerWire @Daily_Discussion @Tiger_chat @Tiger_comments @MillionaireTiger