TSMC Will Buy Up to $500 Million of Anthropic at Its IPO Price, and Another $500 Million of OpenAI

The company that makes the chips is now buying a piece of the companies that need them. TSMC's board approved on Tuesday up to $500 million to buy Anthropic common shares at its IPO price, and up to $500 million of OpenAI preferred stock.

The vote landed on the same day Anthropic set its IPO range at $70 to $78 a share, a deal that could value the Claude maker at up to $1.4 trillion. TSMC is one of the seven companies in the $26 billion private placement Anthropic disclosed with its new terms, next to Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft.

A small slice of a big placement

TSMC's check is among the smallest in that group. Anthropic's amended filing lists TSMC for 6,756,756 shares at the $74 midpoint, according to Tech Times, while Google and Nvidia are each buying about $10 billion. The placement shares are nonvoting Class N stock, priced at the IPO price and not subject to the usual lockup.

The OpenAI side is vaguer. The board resolution sets a cap of $500 million on OpenAI Group preferred stock, but gives no price, valuation or timing.

The relationship runs both ways. Anthropic's own prospectus names its reliance on TSMC for chip supply as a concentration risk, and TSMC now has a direct financial interest in how well Anthropic and OpenAI do.

The rest of the board package

The AI stakes were the headline, but not the biggest number. Directors also approved capital appropriations of about $40.93 billion, mostly for advanced process and packaging capacity, fab construction and 2027 research spending. A separate investment company, capped at $500 million, will make strategic bets across the semiconductor industry and its suppliers.

The board also signed off on third quarter results: revenue of NT$1.49 trillion and net income of NT$763.06 billion. It set a NT$9.0 per share cash dividend, payable on April 8, 2027.

Investors liked the package. TSMC shares rose 2.19% in Taipei on Wednesday, a day after Nvidia fell 5.5% in New York. All of the approvals are ceilings, not closed purchases. The Anthropic stake only goes ahead if the IPO prices, which is expected on November 18.

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