> American MBAs have been hostile to vertical integration for over 50 years now I think you are misusing the term "vertical integration". Intel is vertically i

> American MBAs have been hostile to vertical integration for over 50 years now I think you are misusing the term "vertical integration". Intel is vertically integrated already, as it is an OSAT, Foundry, and Chip Designer. TSMC is only a foundry. Furthermore, the major difference between the Taiwanese ecosystem and American ecosystem is state support and opposition to antitrust. The Taiwanese foundry ecosystem is split between TSMC and UMC, and both receive tens of billions of dollars a year in subsidized loans, land, and power from the Taiwanese government, as well as a blind eye to their overwork culture. The US on the other hand never subsidized the foundry industry until the CHIPS Act was signed, and M&A has become much harder nowadays due to ideological differences, meaning that American companies cannot leverage the economies of scale the same way TSMC, UMC, Samsung, and other foreign chip fabrication players can.