A report put together by Deutsche Bank analysts has mentioned an ongoing supply-demand imbalance within the semiconductor market. According to Jukan's summary of the financial institute's findings, TSMC's "share of the advanced-node foundry market" could fall from an impressive 95% level, down to a mere 90% in the coming years. The industry-leading chipmaker continues to enjoy a prime position, but its international operation footprint seemingly cannot keep up with requests—mainly from fabless customers—during the ongoing AI hardware boom. Deutsche Bank believes that the Taiwanese foundry business has an order backlog extending way into 2027, with many clients requiring 3 nm wafer products. TSMC reportedly aims to get 3 nm node production lines pumping out around 190,000 wafers per month, by the end of this year. Even if this major target is met, demand is expected to outweigh supply. AI chip production-centric bottlenecks—mostly involving CoWoS packaging—have been dealt with in the recent past, but industry observers posit that VIP customers are considering alternate providers.

Allegedly, the next best options are the Samsung and Intel Foundries, despite rumors of teething problems—both companies will very likely welcome new requests. In modern times, many of Samsung's big clients have switched over to TSMC, due to (the former's) supposedly troubled development of more advanced nodes. Deutsche Bank analysts have outlined a "big six" group of key customers: AMD, Apple, Broadcom, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. The fabless firms could be pursuing alternate "production capacity" avenues, with Samsung's 2 nm (SF2) and 4 nm node process lines being of particular interest. Like TSMC, the South Korea megacorp's state-of-the-art fabrication sites and staff expertise are concentrated in home territories. A surprise prediction has highlighted Samsung's main North American foundry—the Deutsche Bank report pinpointed a very specific location: "for customers seeking alternative supply, Samsung's Taylor fab is more likely to become the first destination." In addition, analysts think that the big six will select Samsung's Texas-based foundry over Intel's best native site (perhaps dealing in 18A).