TSMC wins US license to keep China chip tool imports for Nanjing fab

This license decision is a reminder that the race to AGI is ultimately gated by geopolitics as much as algorithms. By granting TSMC an annual approval to keep importing US chipmaking tools for its Nanjing fab, Washington is signalling that it will manage, not sever, China-facing semiconductor supply chains. For AI developers, this reduces near‑term uncertainty around mature‑node capacity in China, even as cutting‑edge GPUs remain tightly controlled.([reuters.com](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-grants-annual-approval-tsmc-chipmaking-tool-exports-china-2025-12-31/))

Strategically, the move aligns TSMC with Samsung and SK Hynix, which already had similar approvals, and indicates that the US is comfortable letting allied foundries maintain operations in China under a licensing regime. That preserves scale and cash flow for these fabs, which in turn supports the capex needed for their most advanced nodes used in high‑end AI accelerators. At the same time, annual renewals keep leverage in Washington’s hands: export controls remain a live policy dial that can be tightened if AI or military risk profiles change.

For the broader AGI race, this is less about giving China access to frontier AI compute and more about avoiding sudden shocks to the global chip ecosystem. Stable manufacturing at older nodes underpins everything from networking gear to autos, freeing leading-edge fabs to focus on the GPUs and HBM that power large models.