Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is setting aside one billion dollars to invest in Anthropic and OpenAI when those companies offer their shares on the stock market.
TSMC, the world’s largest and most advanced chipmaker, wants to invest one billion dollars in AI companies. It is allocating 500 million dollars to Anthropic and another 500 million dollars to OpenAI. TSMC wants to use the money to buy shares during the companies’ respective IPOs.
Circular investment
The plans, approved by TSMC’s board of directors, show that the AI sector does not need Nvidia to set up circular investments. After all, the money the chipmaker invests in the AI companies will mainly be used to build AI infrastructure. That infrastructure consists largely of expensive chips, and those chips almost always roll off a TSMC production line.
So the money TSMC invests will most likely flow back to the company, at least in part. In the end, it is left with shares in AI companies that it has not had to pay all that much for.
Imminent IPO
Anthropic wants to go public before the end of the month. The company hopes its shares will be valued between 70 dollars and 78 dollars, which would give the AI specialist a total valuation of 1.4 trillion dollars. OpenAI also wants to list on the stock market in the short term.
TSMC has the budget to make such investments. The company has been posting record profits for six quarters in a row. In the quarter ending in December, the manufacturer reportedly made 23 billion dollars in profit. The investment in AI companies, which will in turn indirectly inject the money back into TSMC, therefore looks like a relatively safe bet.