TSMC is set to kick off mass production of 2nm in the second half of 2025, with volumes ramping the following year. According to MacRumors, Job’s Mob has already locked in at least half of that 2026 capacity, a move the industry sees as a classic Apple tactic to starve competitors of access to leading-edge process technology.

Apple remains TSMC’s biggest cash cow. The Taiwanese outfit’s 2024 annual report showed its largest single customer delivered NT$6243 billion (€179.3 billion) in revenue, up 14.2 per cent year-on-year and making up 22 per cent of the total. Nobody doubts that customer is Apple, whose entire chip strategy depends on TSMC’s bleeding-edge fabs.

The Dark Satanic rumour mill also suggests Apple will be first in line for TSMC’s wafer-level multi-chip module packaging. That tech is tipped to show up in the M6 chip for the MacBook Pro, the 2026 Vision Pro refresh, and even cheaper iPhones.

Apple vice president of platform architecture Tim Millet once said the Apple's secret sauce was that rivals could not get hold of the same advanced nodes. Job’s Mob has built its empire on that head start, milking each new process node before the rest of the industry can even touch it.

TSMC is preparing 2nm lines in Baoshan and Kaohsiung. Reports say the first wave of Baoshan production has already been booked solid by Apple, while Kaohsiung capacity will be set aside for other customers. That effectively turns Baoshan into Apple’s private fab for flagship kit, while competitors scrap for slots in Kaohsiung.

Intel is still banging on about pushing 2nm production this year, but given its track record it will probably be late to its own party.

TSMC says its 2nm rollout is on schedule and that design wins are already outpacing what it saw with 3nm and 5nm at the same stage. The company is lining up an N2P extension for smartphones and high-performance computing in 2026.