TSMC Board Approves Up to $500 Million Each in Anthropic IPO Shares and OpenAI Preferred Stock

Since Anthropic launched its roadshow on Nov. 10 and detailed a $26 billion strategic placement, TSMC has put its own paper on the table: the board approved up to $500 million in Anthropic common shares and up to $500 million in OpenAI preferred stock.

The resolutions came the same day, Tuesday, Nov. 10. TSMC disclosed them in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

What the board approved

The Anthropic purchase is priced at Anthropic's IPO price. The range is $70 to $78 a share, and the final price and listing date are not set. Media reports put pricing on Nov. 18 and first trade on Nov. 19. Anthropic's filing does not state those dates. Quartz, for its part, describes the $70 to $78 range as Anthropic's pricing on Nov. 10, which reads as the setting of the range rather than the final price.

The OpenAI piece is preferred stock in OpenAI Group PBC. OpenAI remains private. No price or timing for that purchase has been disclosed.

Both figures are ceilings. The filing lists each investment as "not to exceed" $500 million. It gives no ownership percentages, no valuations and no stated purpose. TSMC has not explained the investments, and the purchases remain subject to execution.

The board also approved a separate investment company capitalized at up to $500 million for semiconductor ecosystem deals. That brings the total approved commitments in one session to $1.5 billion.

Where the Anthropic money fits

Reports citing Anthropic's amended S-1 put TSMC at about $500 million, the smallest of seven strategic buyers in the $26 billion placement. Google and Nvidia are each said to be taking about $10 billion. AMD is at about $2.5 billion. Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft are at about $1 billion each.

TSMC's resolution describes common shares at the IPO price. Reports on the placement describe non-voting Class N shares sold at that price. The filings do not resolve whether the two descriptions cover the same purchase.

TSMC can afford it

The same board meeting produced record numbers. Third-quarter net profit was NT$763.06 billion, up 68.7% from a year earlier. Earnings per share were NT$29.43 against NT$17.44 a year ago.

October revenue hit NT$586.89 billion, up 59.7% from a year earlier and 14.7% from September. Revenue for the first ten months of 2026 rose 43.3% to NT$4.49 trillion.

The board raised the third-quarter dividend to a record NT$9 per share from NT$7. The ex-dividend date is March 11, 2027, with payment April 8, 2027.

It also approved about $40.93 billion in capital appropriations for advanced manufacturing, packaging capacity, fab construction and 2027 research and development. Against that, $1 billion in AI stakes is small: WowTale put it at about 2.4% of the approved capital budget and roughly 4% of third-quarter net income.

The market reaction

TSMC's U.S.-listed shares rose 5% in premarket trading on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Its Taipei-listed shares closed 4.8% higher.

The circularity question

TSMC fabricates most of Nvidia's AI data center chips, and Anthropic and OpenAI are buying huge volumes of that hardware. The Wall Street Journal reported that analysts warned this kind of circular financing, among investors, suppliers and customers, makes real demand for AI hardware and services hard to measure.

That concern has company. Nvidia has put $30 billion into OpenAI and $10 billion into Anthropic so far, according to Ars Technica's tally. AMD was reported to have committed up to $5 billion in Anthropic equity, released as deployment milestones are met.

The Journal also reported that the investments may give markets a lift as the AI trade shows signs of strain. Quartz and CoinPaper both point to a broader AI valuation correction and growing worry over soaring AI spending.

Market analysts quoted by Focus Taiwan read the stakes differently, as a sign of TSMC's optimism about AI development and its interest in owning pieces of major AI firms. Taiwanese media, per WowTale's summary, saw a shift from filling chip designers' orders toward equity-backed partnerships. They said shared ownership could give TSMC more flexibility over capacity allocation and pricing. They also noted that Nvidia accounts for a very large share of TSMC's revenue, and that direct ties to AI labs could ease that concentration.

A complication applies to that last point. OpenAI launched a first inference chip with Broadcom. Anthropic was reported in July to be in early talks with Samsung on its own chip using a 2nm process. Those talks are not a contract. Where the labs' own chips get built matters to TSMC, since cutting-edge AI chip manufacturing has largely sat with it.

What comes next

OpenAI's side is murkier. Tech Times reported OpenAI secured $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation on Nov. 7. WowTale reported OpenAI had cut its fundraising target, and said it is unclear whether TSMC's purchase belongs to that round.

The next hard number is Anthropic's final IPO price. That price sets what TSMC's $500 million buys, and neither TSMC nor Anthropic has said how many shares or what percentage that will be.