TSIA backs nuclear power restart review - Taipei Times

The competitive axis in advanced semiconductors is shifting from lithography monopoly to baseload power control. TSIA's endorsement of nuclear restart is not a policy gesture—it is a survival-level demand from fabs whose EUV tools tolerate voltage swings below ±0.5%. A single 3nm fab draws 1.5–2 GW at peak. Nuclear's 99.9% capacity factor is the only grid asset matching that profile; gas peakers simply cannot. A millisecond-level sag can write off hundreds of millions in WIP. Meanwhile, AI training clusters are pushing per-wafer power draw up roughly 40% versus 5nm-era baselines, stretching the chain from HV transformers and liquid-cooling infrastructure to end-user compute demand. On cost, electricity accounts for 15–20% of fab OPEX. If the restart stalls, commercial power rates in Taiwan, China will structurally rise, eroding the margin moat anchoring global foundry capacity there. Korea's nuclear-heavy grid gives Samsung a structural cost edge; the US offsets energy premiums through CHIPS subsidies. The gap is widening. Strategically, the energy endowments of Samsung, Intel, and SMIC are becoming a quiet driver of capacity reallocation. Over the next 12–24 months, expect top-tier fabs to accelerate on-site microgrids and buffer storage. Energy autonomy will enter board-level KPIs for the first time. Power is no longer a utility—it is a core manufacturing asset on par with the lithography stack.