>That new player would need to have 20 billion dollars of money to play along though.
From what I understand, quite a few national governments are at least looking into setting up their own local chip plants since semiconductors have become a critical industry. On that scale, $20b is not a huge speed hump.
All of these projects AFAIK involve enticing a company like TSMC to build new plants, not building their own competitor in the market. I don't think there's any appetite in Europe to invest tens of billions in building their own chip industry.
> appetite in Europe to invest tens of billions in building their own chip industry.
Why would they. They build the machines that create the chips. TSMC would merely manage the chip building orders and the consumables. In case of national emergency I doubt that any government would have qualms about nationalising the factories.
From what I understand, quite a few national governments are at least looking into setting up their own local chip plants since semiconductors have become a critical industry. On that scale, $20b is not a huge speed hump.