Apple, long the dominant force behind TSMC’s growth through its exclusive chip production deals, is now facing a dramatic shift as Nvidia’s explosive AI demand surges ahead.
In a recent exclusive report from Tim Culpan, TSMC CEO CC Wei reportedly informed Apple executives during an August 2025 visit that the iPhone maker would encounter significant price increases and no longer enjoy guaranteed priority access to wafer capacity across the foundry’s fabs. Nvidia is believed to have overtaken Apple as TSMC’s top customer in at least some quarters of 2025, fueled by massive orders for high-performance GPUs that consume larger wafer footprints amid the ongoing AI boom.
While Apple’s broad portfolio ensures its enduring importance to TSMC, the near-term power dynamic has tilted toward Nvidia, forcing Apple to compete more aggressively for advanced node production slots.
According to Culpium analysis and discussions with sources in the supply chain, Nvidia likely took top spot in at least one or two quarters of last year. “We don’t discuss that,” Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told Culpium Thursday when asked about the change in client rankings…
Apple’s chip catalog is broader and more varied, while Nvidia’s lineup is more concentrated around a huge number of wafers at, or near, leading-edge. It’s for these reasons that Apple will remain important for at least another decade.
In the near-term, however, TSMC’s technology roadmap coupled with broader industry trends favor Nvidia, AMD, and their ilk, meaning Apple may need to keep fighting for capacity over the next year or two…
Nevertheless, as SemiAnalysis recently wrote in a fabulous report on the TSMC-Apple relationship, the balance will shift back to Apple because [TSMC’s] A14 [node planned for 2028] is designed “for both mobile and HPC from the start.”
More importantly, what Apple offers is stability. Nvidia has been a client for a lot longer than Apple, but broadly speaking it’s a bit niche. Right now that “niche” is the hottest product on the planet, but niche it is. Apple, on the other hand, has products being made in no fewer than a dozen TSMC fabs. Even if Nvidia did overtake Apple by purchases, the breadth of its manufacturing footprint at TSMC is nowhere near as large.
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