This week, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, posted a record 61% increase in profits, compared to the same quarter last year. While impressive, it’s not altogether surprising to many analysts.

From its base in Taiwan, TSMC manufactures nearly all of the world’s most advanced computer chips for artificial intelligence, the demand for which is stratospheric.

All those other tech titans wouldn’t be what they are without TSMC, said Princeton’s Mike Schmidt, who administered the CHIPS Act in the Biden administration. 

“Every Apple iPhone, every Nvidia AI chip runs on TSMC technology,” Schmidt said.

According to Schmidt, making the chips, rather than designing them, was a decision the firm made decades ago. It was a decision that paid off.

“What that meant was they developed a huge amount of expertise and ultimately scale in manufacturing,” said Schmidt.

That let their customers, like Nvidia, focus on chip design, without needing their own factories. Lawmakers have approved billions in funding to bring more of TSMC’s factories here to the U.S. But achieving the scale it has back in Taiwan won’t be easy. 

“It's not just about one company moving to the U.S.,” said Dan Ives, analyst with Wedbush Securities.

In fact, a lot of the firm’s suppliers are still across the Pacific.

“You have, when it comes to the inner workings of the supply chain, 60, 70 partners, when you actually go downstream involved in the process,” Ives said.

Ives also said the U.S. just doesn’t have enough of the skilled workers to staff these advanced chip factories.

Still, as the world grows ever more reliant on AI and the chips that power it, TSMC’s role at the heart of that supply chain looks only set to grow.