United States: As part of its portfolio changes last quarter, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought a stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co for about $5 billion, disclosing ownership of the major chip maker.

According to a filing, the Omaha-based group purchased approximately 60 million US depository receipts at TSMC during the three months ended September.

The Taiwanese business is Apple's sole supplier of custom silicon chips and makes semiconductors for customers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm. Apple is still the most valuable holding in Berkshire's portfolio.

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If Buffett had bought TSMC's ADRs at the third quarter average price, the investment would have cost him US$5.1 billion. At the moment, they are priced at US$72.80. Following the disclosure, shares of TSMC in Taiwan rose up to 5.1%.

Buffett, 92, has long avoided investing in the tech sector, claiming he doesn't want to fund ventures he doesn't fully understand. However, his position has since changed, and he now invests a large percentage of his company's funds in the tech industry.

As chipmaking is critical to the growth of emerging industries such as self-driving and electric cars, artificial intelligence and connected home applications, it is an area that promises steady growth in the years to come.

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The growing demand for silicon for large-scale data centers is also projected as a result of Amazon's expansion of cloud services such as AWS.

At a time when the US and China battle for control of the global technology industry, TSMC, which has replaced Intel as a leader in chipmaking, has also emerged as a strategically important player.

Taiwan's most valuable company has the manufacturing capabilities to produce the most state-of-the-art chips to develop each country's future commercial industries, such as EVs and AI, as well as their military and cyber defense aspirations. are necessary.

To prevent high-end chips from falling into the hands of the Chinese military, the US has increased restrictions on chips made for Chinese customers.

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The economic downturn has slowed demand for chips, and investors are concerned about an oversupply, resulting in domestic TSMC shares in Taiwan falling 28% as of Monday's close.

The company announced in October that it would reduce capital expenditures from at least US$40 billion originally planned for this year to about US$36 billion, which is still a record high.