Semiconductors and data centers: players, trends, regulation, and how to crack the cases

Examples of companies by step and region, the AI boom from 2024 to 2026, regulation and subsidies, and typical case prompts.

Industry brief, with a one-minute summary: Semiconductors and electronics hardware

Firm processes and online tests change from year to year and differ by office. Use this to prepare, and confirm the exact current steps on the firm's own careers page.

Key takeaways

Chips are now a question of national strategy as well as business. In any case, ask about the customer demand, the capacity, and the government policy that shapes where things are built and sold.
Common traps: Treating all chips as one market (memory, logic, and analog behave very differently).
AI chips lead. Nvidia reported revenue of USD 215.9 billion for its fiscal year 2026 (ended January 2026), of which USD 193.7 billion came from data center products (Nvidia).
Foundry concentration rose.

Key idea

Chips are now a question of national strategy as well as business. In any case, ask about the customer demand, the capacity, and the government policy that shapes where things are built and sold.

Examples of companies by step of the value chain (not a ranking)

Examples of companies by step of the value chain (not a ranking)
Step	Examples and home base
Design tools and IP	Synopsys, Cadence (US); Arm (UK)
Chip design	Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Apple (US); MediaTek (Taiwan); Huawei HiSilicon (China)
Integrated makers	Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron (US); Samsung, SK hynix (Korea); Infineon (Germany); STMicroelectronics (France and Italy)
Foundries	TSMC, UMC (Taiwan); Samsung Foundry (Korea); GlobalFoundries (US); SMIC (China)
Equipment	ASML (Netherlands); Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA (US); Tokyo Electron (Japan)
Assembly and electronics manufacturing	ASE (Taiwan), Amkor (US); Foxconn, Pegatron (Taiwan); Tata Electronics and Dixon (India)
Data centers	Hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle; colocation firms such as Equinix and Digital Realty; G42 and Khazna (UAE); Yotta and CtrlS (India)

So-what

TrendForce data put TSMC at roughly 70 percent or more of the revenue of the top 10 foundries in late 2025 and 2026, which shows how concentrated contract chip manufacturing is.

Trends from 2024 to 2026 (checked 28 September 2026)

A record boom. In February 2026 the Semiconductor Industry Association reported global chip sales of USD 791.7 billion in 2025, up 25.6 percent from USD 630.5 billion in 2024, and projected roughly USD 1 trillion for 2026. By July 2026 it had revised 2025 to USD 795.6 billion and cited a WSTS (World Semiconductor Trade Statistics) forecast of about USD 1.5 trillion for 2026, which would be growth of about 90 percent. Forecasts can change quickly.
AI chips lead. Nvidia reported revenue of USD 215.9 billion for its fiscal year 2026 (ended January 2026), of which USD 193.7 billion came from data center products (Nvidia).
Foundry concentration rose. TrendForce estimates put TSMC's share of the top 10 foundries' revenue at about 72.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026, up from about 70.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, with Samsung second at about 5.9 percent (TrendForce; Taipei Times, September 2026).
Data centers need far more power. The IEA estimates data centers used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, about 1.5 percent of the world total, and projects about 945 TWh by 2030 in its base case, with the US and China taking most of the growth.
Huge spending, and questions about payback. Alphabet raised its 2026 capital spending forecast to as much as USD 205 billion, Amazon guided to about USD 200 billion for 2026, and Microsoft projected about USD 190 billion for the year including finance leases, much of it for AI data centers (CNBC, July 2026).
New locations. Micron opened India's first semiconductor assembly and test plant in Sanand, Gujarat, in February 2026 (Micron). In the UAE, the Stargate UAE AI campus plans a first 200 MW phase in 2026 within a planned 1 GW cluster (G42; The National). Plans of this size often change, so check progress.

Regulation basics (general, not legal advice)

Governments subsidise local chip factories, for example the US CHIPS and Science Act (2022), the EU Chips Act (2023), and the India Semiconductor Mission. The US and some allies control exports of advanced chips and chip-making tools to certain countries, and these rules have changed several times since 2022, so check the current rules for any case involving China or AI chips. Data centers need grid connections, planning and environmental permits, and must follow data protection and data residency laws. Water use for cooling is also regulated in some places.

Typical semiconductor, electronics, and data center case prompts and how to crack them

Typical semiconductor, electronics, and data center case prompts and how to crack them
Case prompt	Structure hint	First driver to check
Should we build a new fab?	Demand by node and customer, capacity versus rivals, capex, subsidies, utilization, payback	Committed customer demand for the new capacity
Where should we build a data center campus?	Power (amount, timing, price, source), land, fiber, water, climate, tax, latency, regulation	Available grid power and how soon it can be connected
Our chip revenue fell 30 percent. Why?	Price versus volume, by product and customer; inventory in the channel; cycle	Customer inventory levels: are customers destocking
Should an electronics maker move assembly to India or Vietnam?	Labour, incentives, supplier base, logistics, tariffs, time to ramp up	Total landed cost per unit including incentives and tariffs
How do we make our chip supply chain more resilient?	Map single points of failure, dual sourcing, inventory buffers, long-term contracts	Parts with only one qualified supplier or one factory location

So-what

Capacity and location cases in this industry are long-term bets. Always test demand, and always ask about power and policy.

Common traps

Treating all chips as one market (memory, logic, and analog behave very differently). Assuming today's boom will last: the industry is cyclical. Forgetting that fabs need years to build and ramp up. Ignoring export controls and subsidies. In data center cases, starting with land or tax instead of power. Assuming a lower cost country is cheaper overall without counting logistics, yield, and ramp-up time.

Timed math drill

Global chip sales were USD 630.5 billion in 2024 and USD 791.7 billion in 2025 (SIA). What was the growth rate, in percent? Round to one decimal place.

Related modules: "Capacity, supply chain, and footprint" (case type) is the main companion for fab and data center capacity; "Investment and capital project decisions" covers NPV and payback of a new plant; "Market study and industry analysis" covers chip market sizing; "Sustainability and decarbonization" covers data center power and water. See also the software and SaaS module for cloud demand and the telecom module for network equipment. The industry-fundamentals module explains supply chains in general.

Check your understanding

Which company supplies the most advanced lithography machines used to make leading-edge chips?

Check your understanding

When choosing a site for a large AI data center, what should you check first?

Check your understanding

Why do governments subsidise chip factories at home?

Terms in this lesson

Market share Capex (capital expenditure)Barriers to entry Net present value (NPV)Bottleneck Foundry Fabless Yield (manufacturing)Capex intensity

Sources for this lesson (11)

My notes on this lesson

Write anything you want to remember. Only you can see it.

0 of 5,000 characters. Saves automatically.

Try the 4 remaining checks and drills above to complete this lesson (0 of 4 done).

Spotted something wrong or out of date? Report a mistake. We check every report and correct the page.