Zero One Investment Research Daily Intelligence Brief, November 5, 2026

TSMC reportedly talks 2029 tool orders as Texas elects a data-center skeptic

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TSMC, Micron, Intel reportedly discuss 2029 tool orders

TSMC (2330 TT), Micron (MU US) and Intel (INTC US) are discussing equipment orders for 2029, Korea's ET News reported via DigiTimes, because some tools now take more than two years to arrive. Toolmakers including ASML (ASML NA), Applied Materials (AMAT US) and Lam Research (LRCX US) are pushing customers toward supply contracts.

That wait is a large step up from August. ET News then said a Korean supplier to TSMC and Micron had seen some lead times stretch from 3-4 months to 6-8 months. TrendForce, citing the same report, said lead times at the top five toolmakers, about 70% of the global market, had grown 1.5 to 2 times.

ASML shows why the queue is forming. CEO Christophe Fouquet said in October that adding 30% to capacity in 2027 and another 30% in 2028 would likely fall short of demand. Customers have already asked about 2029 and 2030, though ASML has not said those requests are firm orders.

Our 28 Oct Blade reported Unimicron's chairman saying some tool lead times run to 30 months, and that the company was ordering early to get them in time. The same behavior now reaches the largest chipmakers. The report gives no order sizes, so Applied Materials' results on 12 Nov are the first chance to see how much of this has turned into backlog.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, MU US, ASML NA, AMAT US

Texas governor-elect backs a data-center pause

Gina Hinojosa, Texas's governor-elect, campaigned on halting new data-center construction as soon as she takes office, until the state writes rules for it. A foreign broker estimate carried by TechNews puts 13.1-13.3GW of Texas projects, about 26% of planned US capacity, at risk of delay.

The state is where the risk sits. Democrats won both chambers of Congress, but a Senate short of 60 seats and the presidential veto make a national halt unlikely. The same report expects the likeliest federal law to cover cost sharing for grid upgrades, permits and transmission. In Texas, polling shows 69% opposed to data centers and more than 80% concerned.

Most of this looks like delay. The report says demand for GPUs, memory and optical parts does not depend on location, but that grid connections elsewhere take four years or more, so replacement sites would not come quickly. Capacity already running gains value: John Belton of Gabelli Funds said Amazon (AMZN US) and Microsoft (MSFT US) could have more room to raise prices.

Hinojosa's position would matter most for builders that depend on new sites. The question now is whether a campaign pause becomes state rules after she takes office, and how long those rules take.

Linked stocks: MSFT US, AMZN US, CRWV US, NVDA US

Unbooked AI commitments jump 90% in six months

Alphabet (GOOGL US), Meta (META US), Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle (ORCL US) held US$3.2tn of AI commitments outside their balance sheets at the end of September, up 90% from March, TechNews reported citing a foreign media tally. The total equals about 80% of the five companies' combined assets, and part of the figures are estimates.

These are future payments disclosed only in the notes to the accounts. About 60% is long-term purchasing of chips, servers and power, and 40% is equipment and facility leases that have not started. Alphabet carries US$1.05tn and Meta about US$810bn. Alphabet's total is about 2.6 times its March level, though the tally warns its calculation may have changed.

Those contracts now support the credit of the rest of the chain. CoreWeave borrows against them, including Meta's roughly US$21bn deal through 2032. SK hynix (000660 KS) said it has long-term agreements with 14 major customers covering more than half of its 2027-28 high-bandwidth memory capacity.

The weak point is the borrower with little else. cnYES reported CoreWeave's unsecured bond yields above 15%, while yields at peers IREN and Nebius did not follow. The figure to check next quarter is how much of the US$3.2tn moves onto balance sheets as leases start.

Linked stocks: GOOGL US, META US, ORCL US, CRWV US

Qualcomm drops Apple from its guide

Qualcomm (QCOM US) no longer counts chip sales to Apple (AAPL US) in this quarter's guide, CEO Cristiano Amon said, as handset revenue fell 26% YoY to US$5.14bn in FY4Q26. Handsets are nearly half of revenue, and that figure missed the US$5.25bn analysts expected. Shares fell more than 7% after hours.

Two things drove the drop: 1) AI demand for high-bandwidth memory raised memory prices and consumer device costs, and Counterpoint says 3Q26 phone shipments fell 20% to a 14-year low, and 2) Apple is replacing Qualcomm's modems with its own. A chip price rise in September did not offset either.

Total revenue fell 7% to US$10.44bn, ahead of the US$10.11bn expected. The guide's EPS midpoint of US$2.25 sits below the US$2.27 expected, and Bloomberg tied the soft profit outlook to higher supply costs. Amon said Android sales have bottomed and are growing quarter on quarter.

Growth now comes from elsewhere. Automotive revenue rose 89% to US$1.99bn. Qualcomm guided FY1Q27 data center revenue to US$650m against US$539m expected, and targets US$15bn in FY29. SpaceX also picked Qualcomm for Starlink Mobile's US 5G network, with tens of thousands of sites planned from 2027. With Apple out of the base, the guide depends on that Android recovery continuing.

Linked stocks: QCOM US, AAPL US, ARM US

Arm secures TSMC supply for US$2bn of chips

Arm (ARM US) expects to sell US$2bn of its AGI CPU across FY27 and FY28, and CEO Rene Haas said it has worked with TSMC and other suppliers to secure enough material to build them. Until this year Arm only licensed designs. It entered the chip business in March with US$1bn of orders.

The print shows where the money is moving. FY2Q27 licensing revenue rose 50% to US$773m, ahead of the US$625m expected, while royalties rose 8% to US$670m against US$721m expected. Data center royalties doubled, but higher memory prices hurt smartphones, which offset part of that growth.

Arm expects its designs to reach more than 60% of large cloud providers' server deployments by the end of 2026, from more than 50% in 2025. Haas said it is taking share from Intel and AMD (AMD US) in standard server racks.

Total revenue rose 27% to US$1.44bn. The FY3Q27 guide of about US$1.54bn matched the US$1.53bn average, but some forecasts reached about US$1.7bn, and shares fell after hours. Delivering the US$2bn depends on the same supply lines every other chip buyer is queuing for.

Linked stocks: ARM US, 2330 TT, AMD US, INTC US

US$45bn Texas fab filing points to TSMC

Texas has received a filing from an unnamed company for two advanced fabs worth US$45bn, with volume production by the end of 2029, Economic Daily News reported, and the industry widely assumes it is TSMC. BusinessKorea said TSMC is evaluating Sherman in north Texas. TSMC declined to comment and pointed to its October earnings call.

Chairman C.C. Wei has said a team is evaluating Texas because large US customers want more local capacity. He also said TSMC is talking with Terafab, the fab project linked to Elon Musk, and that any such fab must be run by TSMC. Its second Arizona fab is installing tools for volume production in 3Q27.

Sherman is about 300km from Samsung's (005930 KS) Taylor and Austin sites, DigiTimes noted. Maeil Business Newspaper reported Taylor's second fab breaks ground this month with all capacity already booked, mostly by AMD. It will use a 2nm process to make base dies, the logic chip under each high-bandwidth memory stack, for AMD and NVIDIA (NVDA US).

Samsung is also a TSMC customer. It agreed to send base dies for NVIDIA's custom memory to TSMC's 3nm process, its first such order to TSMC, while keeping other customers in house. A named filing or a TSMC board approval would confirm the Texas plan.

Linked stocks: 2330 TT, 005930 KS, AMD US, NVDA US

Japan's state fund reportedly sells JSR to Mitsui

Japan Investment Corp, the state-backed fund, will sell JSR to Mitsui Chemicals (4183 JT) in a deal that may exceed JPY1.3tn, people familiar with the plan told DigiTimes, and it could be finalized as soon as this month. JSR makes photoresist, the light-sensitive coating used to print chip circuits. JIC bought the company about two years ago.

Economic Daily News put JSR's market share as high as 30%, with a strong position in the resists used for extreme ultraviolet lithography. Mitsui already sells substrate and packaging materials, so the deal would give it products at both ends of chipmaking.

For fabs, this means fewer and larger suppliers in a material that is costly to switch. Qualifying a resist at 3nm and 2nm is strict, the paper noted, and the industry is watching supplier concentration at TSMC and Intel. Wah Lee (3010 TT), a long-term JSR partner in Taiwan, and rivals Shin-Etsu and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo are also exposed to the outcome. The report rests on unnamed sources, and a signed agreement would settle both the buyer and the price.

Linked stocks: 4183 JT, 2330 TT, 3010 TT

先聲 First Word: Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

MediaTek hires Intel veteran to run advanced process and packaging

MediaTek (2454 TT) said former Intel executive vice president Navid Shahriari joins on 9 Nov as a senior vice president leading advanced process, yield, test and packaging. His brief is deeper work with TSMC, which shows where MediaTek thinks its AI chip execution will be decided. (4 Nov 2026) Source: 聯發科延攬前英特爾高層 Navid Shahriari 加入

Chicony Power says satellite orders are double its forecast

Chicony Power (6412 TT) said orders for new low-orbit satellite power units came in at twice its expectations, and it is adding lines in Thailand to double capacity next year. SpaceX is reportedly the main customer, giving a notebook supplier a second business as PC demand falls. (4 Nov 2026) Source: 群電衝低軌衛星 總座曾國華：通訊電源新品拉貨又急又猛

AIC starts AMD Helios production at its Yangmei plant

AIC (3693 TT), a server chassis maker, said AMD's Helios rack product has entered mass production at its new Yangmei plant, and that it already holds 2027 orders. Nine-month revenue of NT$8.125bn already tops all of 2025, an early supplier check on Helios. (4 Nov 2026) Source: 〈焦點股〉營邦今年營收有望突破百億創高