It's like a punter making a reverse forecast - that's a bet on the two favourites in a horse race.
The board of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, has authorised up to $500 million for a stake in Anthropic and up to $500 million for one in OpenAI, Reuters reported on 10 November.
Anthropic is the developer of the Claude AI models, while OpenAI makes ChatGPT.
Limits, not purchases
The authorisations are spending limits rather than completed deals.
The terms also differ between the two companies.
TSMC's Anthropic allocation would buy ordinary shares at the price set in Anthropic's stock market flotation.
Its OpenAI allocation is earmarked for preferred stock, a class of shares that ranks ahead of ordinary shares and is typically used in private-company fundraising rather than a public listing.
Supply pressures
Anthropic's own flotation filing disclosed that limits on TSMC's manufacturing capacity had at times delayed scheduled chip deliveries.
That helps explain why TSMC wants a clearer view of how much computing power its customers will need.
A third pot
The South China Morning Post reported a separate authorisation of up to $500 million for an investment vehicle focused on the wider semiconductor industry.
That sits outside the $1 billion ceiling for the AI companies.
If all three limits were used in full, TSMC's maximum commitments would total $1.5 billion.
The newspaper said TSMC's board did not specify whether either stake comes with chip-supply arrangements or joint-design agreements.
The move is separate from a possible investment by Nvidia, the US chip designer, linked to Anthropic's flotation.
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