(00:00:00) TSMC Earnings Preview: CoWoS Crunch, H200 China Restart & Intel's CPU Comeback
(00:00:34) TSMC Price Hikes Signal Real Demand
(00:01:17) CoWoS Packaging The Real Bottleneck
(00:02:17) Nvidia H200 China Shipments Restart
(00:02:44) Intel Xeon CPU Quiet Comeback
(00:03:18) EU Backs German Chip Sovereignty
(00:03:46) What To Watch After Thursday

TSMC reports second-quarter earnings on Thursday, and the numbers carry weight far beyond one company's balance sheet. Analysts expect profit of roughly $19.65 billion — up 59% year on year and a potential record — but the real signal lies in three variables: CoWoS advanced packaging capacity, full-year capex guidance, and whether CEO C.C. Wei raises the outlook. Together, those data points will tell investors whether the AI infrastructure buildout is compounding or quietly plateauing.

Advanced packaging is the constraint that often gets overlooked. CoWoS — the process that stacks memory directly next to compute — is entirely controlled by TSMC, with no merchant market alternative. Capacity has grown roughly 80% annually, targeting 125,000–130,000 wafers per month by end of 2026. Whether Thursday's call revises that roadmap upward matters more than transistor density debates.

Elsewhere in the industry, limited H200 GPU shipments to China have restarted under approved export licenses — a narrow but operationally significant shift from aspiration to reality. Intel's data center segment is quietly benefiting from the inference workload shift, with Xeon CPUs consolidating AI server infrastructure beyond pure training economics. And the European Commission approved €659 million in German semiconductor subsidies, pushing cumulative EU chip investment above €14 billion.

For investors, engineers, and infrastructure professionals: Thursday's TSMC call is the week's defining event. This episode sets up every variable worth watching before the numbers land.

This episode includes AI-generated content.