The scale of the problem
To get a sense of the scale of the Apple supply chain, the company confirmed that it sourced 19 billion chips from across a dozen US states in 2025. Most, though not all, of these processors are far less advanced than the main processor in Apple’s devices; they’re lower tier and used for things like power management, Wi-Fi, or display drivers. Apple is investing hundreds of billions of dollars to expand its manufacturing supply chain in the US, including a commitment to assemble Mac minis here. But it will take a very long time to completely replicate what it has already, particularly in China and Taiwan.
Apple has a golden problem to further complicate the sum. Demand for its products is increasing. Apple confirmed this is across all its products. The company also saw growth in every market, including strong double-digit growth in Greater China and the rest of Asia-Pacific. People are flocking to its platforms, giving it an installed base of 2.5 billion devices — including “record numbers” of new Mac customers and record iPhone 17 sales. Meanwhile, demand for the MacBook Neo is “off the charts,” Cook said. This Apple adoption curve is real, and the challenge of meeting that demand is also real, which is why Cook warned that supply constraints would persist for months.
Apple needed to start somewhere
This is the background to Apple’s reported meetings with potential chip suppliers at Intel and Samsung, neither of which are likely to be able to match TSMC’s scale. Apple hasn’t made any decisions yet and these talks are described as preliminary. But they reflect the company’s need to protect its business against additional shocks while ramping its supply chain up to meet new demand. These discussions could go nowhere, of course. In the meantime, TSMC expects to make 100 million processors for Apple at its US factory this year.
