Scenarios
Five stress cases over the AI-compute supply chain.
Taiwan Strait: TSMC Disruption Cascade
A disruption to TSMC can restrict the supply of chips for new AI systems. Four cases (blockade, physical damage, loss of power and export restrictions) apply different assumed severities and propagation multipliers to TSMC. The cascade follows the recorded supplier–customer network across source classes. The connection diagram and inventory-buffer calculation use the publicly sourced subset. The underlying collection contains 20,798 supply-chain records across all sources. Of these, 1,924 come from a licensed layer limited to relationships between organizations already in Scrutica's records.
Taiwan accounts for ~92% of leading-edge pure-play foundry manufacturing (CSET, 2021). The scenarios model a disruption at TSMC and its downstream effects. Recovery times are scenario assumptions.
Modelled downstream exposure to the selected TSMC disruption.
The diagram uses publicly sourced supplier–customer relationships. The cascade totals also include other source classes, so some affected organisations and connections may be absent from the drawing. The animation illustrates connection steps; the separate inventory-buffer curve estimates their timing under its assumptions.
Country-level share for leading-edge foundry, Herfindahl–Hirschman indices for total foundry revenue and EUV lithography, and the key customer dependencies.
Evidence on alternative fabrication, packaging and EUV suppliers, with limits on capacity and substitutability.
Programmes assessed as highly dependent on NVIDIA, ordered by reported accelerator count. The curves apply the selected disruption scenario to their chip suppliers.
How the simulated disruption develops as inventories run down and alternative supplies become available. The shaded range varies the assumed inventory buffers.
Product specifications, teardowns and shipment estimates on Chinese suppliers’ ability to replace disrupted production.
Export-control records and the decisions that would affect access to replacement supplies during a disruption.
Compare the assumed severity, affected fabs and timing of each disruption, with historical events for context.
The TSMC starting point, assumed severity and propagation multiplier, and the different source coverage of the cascade and inventory-buffer calculations.
Open the engine’s TSMC disruption preset to compare it with another scenario or organisation and adjust the correlation weighting. The four cases here each use their own severity and propagation settings; this link opens the preset’s defaults.