State of the Supply Chain — August 2026

The chain at a glance

wafergraph tracks 615 companies across 12 segments of the semiconductor & AI value chain. All figures below are computed from the live dataset, market data as of 2026-08-12.

Source: wafergraph dataset; market caps via Yahoo Finance × SEC EDGAR shares; financials via SEC EDGAR. As of 2026-08-12.

The largest players by market value

The ten most valuable companies in the tracked chain. Concentration at the top is extreme: the top company alone is $5.27T.

1. 1NVIDIA$5.27T
2. 2Apple$4.45T
3. 3Alphabet (Google)$4.20T
4. 4Microsoft$3.74T
5. 5Amazon (Annapurna Labs)$2.94T
6. 6TSMC$2.19T
7. 7Broadcom$1.98T
8. 8Meta Platforms$1.53T
9. 9Tesla$1.31T
10. 10AMD$774.3B

Source: live market caps, as of 2026-08-12.

Segment leaders

The most valuable company in each of the 12 value-chain segments, with the number of tracked companies competing in it.

1. 1Materials: Linde105 companies$226.1B
2. 2Equipment (Front End): ASML64 companies$691.1B
3. 3Equipment (Back End): Advantest25 companies$157.3B
4. 4EDA & IP: Arm Holdings32 companies$287.2B
5. 5Design (Fabless): NVIDIA106 companies$5.27T
6. 6IDM: Texas Instruments22 companies$256.8B
7. 7Foundry: TSMC17 companies$2.19T
8. 8Memory: Seagate Technology Holdings32 companies$186.0B
9. 9Analog, Power, RF: Texas Instruments87 companies$256.8B
10. 10OSAT: ASE Technology22 companies$100.6B
11. 11Distribution & Misc: Dell Technologies59 companies$284.9B
12. 12AI & Data Center: Alphabet (Google)116 companies$4.20T

Leader = largest tracked market cap in the segment (live caps).

Top chokepoints

The companies the rest of the chain depends on most. "Downstream dependence" measures transitive downstream reach weighted by market dominance, normalized 0–100 — the higher the score, the more of the chain breaks if this node does.

1. 1Carl Zeiss SMT245 downstream · $35.85T at risk100
2. 2TRUMPF245 downstream · $35.85T at risk100
3. 3ASML244 downstream · $35.16T at risk100
4. 4Ajinomoto242 downstream · $34.91T at risk99
5. 5Lasertec236 downstream · $34.79T at risk97
6. 6AIXTRON279 downstream · $35.53T at risk93
7. 7Infineon Technologies274 downstream · $35.41T at risk92
8. 8Delta Electronics270 downstream · $35.04T at risk91
9. 9Schneider Electric270 downstream · $35.04T at risk91
10. 10Vertiv270 downstream · $35.04T at risk91

Source: wafergraph risk model (criticality index). Methodology: /methodology.

Where the chain is thin

Single-source dependencies and the most concentrated segments — the places a single disruption propagates furthest. 5 companies are flagged as effective monopolies in their niche.

1. 1ASMLSole supplier of EUV lithography machines required for all leading-edge chips.monopoly
2. 2AjinomotoSupplies effectively all ABF build-up film, the insulator in advanced CPU/GPU substrates.monopoly
3. 3LasertecOnly supplier of actinic EUV photomask inspection systems.monopoly
4. 4Carl Zeiss SMTSole maker of the precision optics inside every ASML lithography system.monopoly
5. 5TRUMPFSole supplier of the CO2 drive lasers powering EUV light sources.monopoly

Thinnest segments by company count: Foundry (17), IDM (22), OSAT (22), Equipment (Back End) (25).

Most concentrated segments (HHI)

Market-share concentration measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index — the sum of squared firm shares (0–10000). Standard bands: below 1500 competitive, 1500–2500 moderately concentrated, above 2500 highly concentrated. The top of this list is where a handful of firms hold the market; a separate lens from the graph chokepoints above.

1. 1LithographyHighly concentrated · CR3 100% · leader ASML7,986
2. 2GPU & AI AcceleratorsHighly concentrated · CR3 96% · leader NVIDIA7,808
3. 3HBMHighly concentrated · CR3 100% · leader SK hynix4,248
4. 4Pure-Play FoundryHighly concentrated · CR3 79% · leader TSMC4,060
5. 5FPGAHighly concentrated · CR3 86% · leader AMD3,395
6. 6DRAMHighly concentrated · CR3 97% · leader Samsung Electronics3,321
7. 7Mobile SoCModerately concentrated · CR3 77% · leader MediaTek2,247
8. 8NANDModerately concentrated · CR3 72% · leader Samsung Electronics2,167
9. 9EDA SoftwareModerately concentrated · CR3 75% · leader Synopsys2,093
10. 10Silicon WafersModerately concentrated · CR3 65% · leader Shin-Etsu Chemical1,758

Source: wafergraph market-share estimates (updated 2026-06-15). Shares are approximate, not audited; the fragmented "other" tail is excluded, so each HHI is a conservative lower bound.

The capex race

Capital expenditure is the clearest signal of who is building the AI buildout. Combined hyperscaler capex alone is $464.6B.

1. 1Amazon (Annapurna Labs)$131.8B
2. 2Microsoft$115.9B
3. 3Alphabet (Google)$91.4B
4. 4Meta Platforms$69.7B
5. 5Oracle$55.7B
6. 6TSMC$30.3B
7. 7Micron Technology$15.9B
8. 8Intel$14.6B
9. 9Apple$12.7B
10. 10CoreWeave$10.3B

Source: SEC EDGAR latest annual capex. As of 2026-08-12.

Fastest-growing companies

Year-over-year revenue growth from the latest reported fiscal year — where the demand is landing in the chain.

1. 1Mitsubishi Chemical GroupFY2026+4785.3%
2. 2Daikin IndustriesFY2026+533.0%
3. 3AjinomotoFY2026+404.9%
4. 4Sumitomo Heavy IndustriesFY2025+372.9%
5. 5HOYAFY2026+290.6%
6. 6Shin-Etsu ChemicalFY2026+235.8%
7. 7Credo TechnologyFY2026+205.7%
8. 8Sumitomo BakeliteFY2026+199.5%

Source: SEC EDGAR year-over-year revenue. Latest reported FY.

Most profitable

Annual net income — the cash engines funding the buildout.

1. 1Microsoft$133.7B
2. 2Alphabet (Google)$132.2B
3. 3NVIDIA$120.1B
4. 4Apple$112.0B
5. 5Amazon (Annapurna Labs)$77.7B
6. 6Meta Platforms$60.5B
7. 7TSMC$35.3B
8. 8Tencent$33.4B

Source: SEC EDGAR latest annual net income.

Biggest deals on record

The largest M&A, AI-compute, and capacity commitments in the tracked deal corpus (74 sourced deals).

1. 1Stargate Project launched2025-01-21 · announced$500.0B
2. 2OpenAI–Oracle $300B cloud deal2025-09-10 · announced$300.0B
3. 3OpenAI commits $250B to Azure2025-10-28 · announced$250.0B
4. 4Broadcom's attempted Qualcomm takeover2017-11-06 · terminated$117.0B
5. 5NVIDIA invests up to $100B in OpenAI2025-09-22 · announced$100.0B
6. 6Micron's NY & Idaho memory megafabs2022-10-04 · under_construction$100.0B
7. 7TSMC's $65B Arizona fabs2024-04-08 · under_construction$65.0B
8. 8Broadcom acquires VMware2022-05-26 · completed$61.0B

Source: wafergraph deals database (each entry links a public source).