TSMC’s foundry lead looks hard to break as Rapidus targets 2 nm

TSMC controls over 90% of the world’s most advanced chip production. Japan’s government-backed startup Rapidus, Intel’s reinvigorated foundry ambitions, and China’s SMIC are each taking different routes toward the same destination: breaking TSMC’s stranglehold on leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing.

The challengers and their war chests

Rapidus received an additional $4 billion in state funding in April 2026, bringing its total government backing to over $16 billion. Its target is 2nm chip mass production, a node size that sits right at the frontier of what’s physically possible in semiconductor manufacturing.

Intel is advancing its own 18A process node as a direct competitor to TSMC’s offerings while simultaneously exploring potential joint ventures involving its foundry operations.

SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, is scaling up its mature-node capacity while pushing to enhance its 7nm production capabilities. SMIC is specifically targeting Bitcoin mining ASICs as one application for its improving 7nm process.