Avoid chasing new AI chip stocks and accumulate TSM?
u/Low-Cartographer-429 ·
Reddit — r/stocks
· September 02, 2026 at 23:41
· ⬆ 23 pts
· 💬 27 comments
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I own Cerebras (CBRS), TSM, and NVDA inside an IRA representing less than 10% of my total portfolio. The latest Moonshots podcast (at 1 hr 3 m) discussed a startup called Architect Labs who produced the world's first fully designed AI chip called Redwood. Two guys wrote a spec then AI designed the rest within 2 weeks that allegedly beat NVDA's Jetson by 3.4X performance per watt.
Not saying it's a threat to CBRS directly as a fast inference play since it's for physical AI. But I find the concept of AI-accelerated chip design a little troubling. I actually started to feel uncomfortable a few months ago when I realized most chip companies are design firms who send products off to fabs. Also got uncomfortable with the increasing number of ASIC competitors to NVDA.
CBRS and NVDA use TSM exclusively to produce their chips and I'm long on TSM stock. Thinking I should buy more TSM because you can't use AI to rapidly innovate and build a new fab. That takes enormous effort and amounts of capital. My fear is that new AI chip companies won't move fast enough to grow a moat and may be eclipsed by other competitors in the same space where the barrier to entry is small. You ship your design off to TSMC or one of the other fabs. TSM will prosper regardless of which chip design companies do well. Not sure any other fabs even come close.
I don't worry about the geopolitical risk of TSM because if China invades Taiwan, all of the chip companies will be impacted and it would probably hurt China's economy as well. Thinking about selling 10% of my NVDA to put into TSM. What do people think of this strategy? I also want more exposure to physical AI as a thesis, and while the majority of TSM's business is currently in small process nodes, they also manufacture the older, larger nodes. Read somewhere that robots may use a 1:50 brain-to-body chip ratio; meaning 1 part small process node intelligence chip and 50 for all the other chips required to interact with the physical world (power, sensors, etc).
Most of my portfolio is in VTI (Vanguard Total US Stock Market Index) because I generally don't feel comfortable trying to pick individual winners and losers. But I have high conviction in TSM vs. trying to pick winning semiconductor stocks; ones that can win as long-term holds.