Chip giant TSMC to promote from within after chairman Mark Liu retires next year

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chip maker, said its board had recommended current CEO and vice-chairman C.C. Wei succeed Mark Liu, who will be retiring next year as chairman, offering continuity to the major Apple supplier.

Company veteran Liu became TSMC’s chairman in 2018 after founder Morris Chang, who remains the senior statesman of Taiwan’s chip industry, retired.

Liu, who joined TSMC in 1993, said he would like to put his “decades of semiconductor experience to other use, spend more time with my family, and start the next chapter of my life”, according to a company statement.

“I am confident that TSMC will continue to perform outstandingly in the years to come.”

The TSMC board’s nominating, corporate governance and sustainability committee recommended that Wei succeed Liu, subject to the election of the incoming board in June 2024.

“Its internal processes in terms of developing professional high-end leadership talent are comprehensive and polished,” he said. “I don’t think the change (in leadership) will noticeably impact the operation or direction for TSMC going forward.”

Wei, who has a doctorate in electrical engineering from Yale University, has been on the company’s board since 2017 and joined TSMC in 1998.

TSMC is a major supplier to companies like Apple and Nvidia and its stock price has soared 30 per cent this year, valuing the firm at US$483.3 billion – helped in part by a boom in artificial intelligence applications.

TSMC, Asia’s most-valuable listed firm, has repeatedly said business would continue to be boosted by a “mega-trend” in the industry, brought about also by demand for high-performance computing chips for 5G networks and data centres.

While TSMC has said the majority of its manufacturing will continue to remain in Taiwan, it is building new plants in Germany, Japan and the US state of Arizona, to meet global demand and in response to customers who want to de-risk the supply chain from overconcentration in one part of the world.