Lemon
A-Share/HK/US Equity Commentary, Ex-HSBC Investment Banker
SMIC is one of the few low-valued Hong Kong-listed leaders of China's full-stack AI supply chain, and AI chip foundry should enter a long boom. China's AI capex is a tenth of the US's, and the binding constraint is chip manufacturing, specifically foundry capacity, not money, power, applications or materials. Solving it would let capex expand quickly. SMIC is catching up, with strong demand and tight capacity. Huawei and T-Head are unlisted and Cambricon looks pricey. x.comÂ
SMIC should reach an all-time high soon because its gross profit could ramp quickly as foundry capacity everywhere else is sold out. It is one of four foundries able to ship 7nm chips and sits at the core of Huawei's ramp and China's strategic interests, so a levered tier-2 player should get a real utilization and pricing boost. It is not cheap, at 30x+ market cap to gross profit like TSMC, and its sanctions-list status limits offshore buyers. x.com x.com x.comÂ
Hua Hong Semiconductor's capacity mix best fits a structural supply-demand reversal in mature-node foundry, with profits just turning up from the low. AI demand for power chips has pushed top foundries' 8-inch utilization toward 90%, per TrendForce, as TSMC and Samsung cut 8-inch capacity, while Taiwan foundries shift 12-inch lines to power parts, pushing customers to mainland China. Hua Hong is power-heavy and above 100% utilization. The tightening is gradual, peaking likely in late 2027. x.comÂ
Taiwan Semiconductor manufactures chips for competing AI designers, so its upside does not depend on which designer wins. Nearly every AI chip comes from the same fabs; Nvidia, AMD and custom-silicon competition all feed that business. The risk is that the whole AI race slows: 68% of revenue is tied to high-performance computing. x.comÂ
As custom AI chips become normal, the scarce asset may be the capacity to build them, since every design passes through the same packaging, substrate, PCB material and manufacturing bottlenecks. Meta with MediaTek and Amazon with Alchip show chip design going modular. That favors TSMC for manufacturing, Alchip for ASIC back-end work, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Ibiden and AT&S for high-end substrates, and Shengyi Technology if AI PCB material stays tight. The bottleneck map widened. x.com x.comÂ
Architecture changes could lift TSMC wafer demand. Shifting from 12-high to 8-high lifts volumes; an on-device AI phone upgrade cycle would be enormously bullish, while ASIC gains over Nvidia help because ASICs use more wafers. TSMC is arguably more vital to AI buildout than MAG stocks and a reasonable extended-AI-cycle play at a not-crazy multiple, barring big macro events. Margins may not expand as capex rises; a Terrafab partnership, if it happens, would somewhat ease Intel competition risk. … Show more
TSMC's latest results point to AI chip demand still running ahead of supply, supporting the semiconductor and equipment trade. Cantor says TSMC raised its 2026 revenue outlook again, guided December-quarter sales above consensus and held 65-67% gross-margin guidance through the N2 ramp; its bullish sector read names Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD, ASML, Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA. Jensen Huang says AI labs need not reach trillions in revenue to justify the buildout. x.com x.comÂ
TSMC's capex plans suggest the AI chip trade is not over for semiconductors, Nvidia, AMD and Micron. CFO Wendell Huang cites robust multi-year demand, including agentic AI, behind $60-64 billion of 2026 capex; TSMC expects 2026-28 spending to be even more significantly higher than in the prior three years. Hyperscaler earnings should reinforce the higher AI capex trajectory. CoreWeave-driven fears feel overdone, though the neocloud model does not appeal long term. x.com x.comÂ
Qnity Electronics is a picks-and-shovels way to invest in AI without picking which chipmaker wins, because it supplies the materials chipmakers consume throughout manufacturing. Its photoresists, CMP pads and slurries, packaging and thermal materials, Kapton films and specialty chemicals are consumables replenished as wafers move through fabs, creating recurring demand across a diversified customer base. Risks include chip spending cycles, intense competition and geopolitical exposure in Asia. … Show more
China's entry into chip design and fabrication is a structural change: stop fading China as Western AI chip and cloud leaders get steeply discounted. China dominates nearly every manufacturing category; with multi-patterning its DUV tools perform near newer nodes and could scale massively or reach EUV. Chinese open models co-designed for Chinese chips could pull sovereignty-minded countries onto its tech stack. As Ford fared after China joined the WTO, so may Nvidia, ASML, TSMC and AWS by 2050. … Show more
Chinese semiconductor equipment makers such as Naura and AMEC are the market's main line because they address the central problem in Chinese semiconductors: advanced capacity and equipment localization. Solving that problem runs through equipment and materials, so the pricing focus of capital in Chinese stocks will center on those segments. x.comÂ
