TSM vs NVDA: TSMC vs NVIDIA Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
TSMC and NVIDIA are the two most critical companies in the AI semiconductor supply chain — NVIDIA designs the AI chips and TSMC manufactures them. They are partners, not competitors. The investment choice is between the chip designer capturing enormous AI-driven demand (NVIDIA, higher multiple) and the world's only manufacturer capable of making those chips at scale (TSMC, lower multiple but irreplaceable strategic position).
Use this TSM vs NVDA comparison to choose between the AI chip design leader and the AI chip manufacturing monopoly. NVIDIA has higher revenue growth and is the primary AI compute brand; TSMC benefits from every major AI chip without the design or software execution risk, at a lower valuation multiple.
NVDA holds the edge across 3 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. TSM has delivered stronger 1-year price return (+109.05% vs +47.22%), though NVDA trades at the lower forward P/E (16.17x vs 21.87x). Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for NVDA (+45.50%) than for TSM (+9.53%).
- →Want exposure to AI chip demand without the software and design execution risk of the chip designers
- →Value TSMC's irreplaceable foundry position — a true structural monopoly in advanced semiconductor manufacturing
- →Prefer a lower valuation multiple than NVIDIA in exchange for broadly diversified customer exposure
- →Are comfortable with geopolitical risk around Taiwan as the primary structural risk factor
- →Want the dominant AI compute brand with the CUDA software ecosystem moat
- →Believe data center GPU demand will remain elevated as AI training and inference workloads grow
- →Value the software platform advantage that creates switching costs beyond the hardware itself
- →Are comfortable with a high valuation that prices in continued AI infrastructure growth
| Metric | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|
| AI score | 80.2 | 88.9 |
| AI rank | #14 | #3 |
| Latest close | $427.44 | $208.64 |
| 1M return | +3.83% | -3.05% |
| 6M return | +42.38% | +14.38% |
| 1Y return | +109.05% | +47.22% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $21.16K (+111.6%) started 2025-06-09 | $14.63K (+46.3%) started 2025-06-09 |
| 5Y ago | $43.23K (+332.3%) started 2021-06-09 | $120.72K (+1107.2%) started 2021-06-09 |
| 10Y ago | $285.63K (+2756.3%) started 2016-06-09 | $1.83M (+18168.2%) started 2016-06-09 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $2.22T | $4.97T |
| Trailing P/E | 36.66 | 31.46 |
| Forward P/E | 21.87 | 16.17 |
| Price/Sales | 0.54 | 23.66 |
| EV/Revenue | 3.77 | 19.42 |
| Analyst target | $467.84 | $298.42 |
| Target upside | +9.53% | +45.50% |
| Metric | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth | 35.10% | 85.20% |
| Earnings growth | 58.40% | 214.50% |
| EPS growth | +58.40% | +214.50% |
| FCF margin | +17.52% | +18.28% |
| Operating margin | N/A | 65.60% |
| Profit margin | 46.51% | 62.97% |
| ROIC proxy | 36.21% | 114.29% |
| Return on equity | 36.21% | 114.29% |
| Dividend yield | 0.89% | 0.49% |
| Beta | 1.25 | 2.20 |
| Debt/equity | 18.45 | 6.55 |
| Current ratio | 2.49 | 3.44 |
| Quick ratio | 2.19 | 2.14 |
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growth | +109.05% | +46.28% |
| CAGR | +109.16% | +46.51% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 2.10 | 1.15 | |
| Max drawdown | 18.14% | 20.22% | |
| Max daily drop | 6.69% | 6.20% | |
| Max wkly drop | 10.46% | 10.72% | |
| 5Y | Growth | +296.48% | +1104.43% |
| CAGR | +31.72% | +64.53% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.81 | 1.14 | |
| Max drawdown | 56.47% | 66.34% | |
| Max daily drop | 13.33% | 16.97% | |
| Max wkly drop | 16.17% | 22.20% | |
| 10Y | Growth | +2021.70% | +17837.44% |
| CAGR | +35.73% | +68.05% | |
| Sharpe ratio | 0.94 | 1.20 | |
| Max drawdown | 56.47% | 66.34% | |
| Max daily drop | 14.03% | 18.76% | |
| Max wkly drop | 16.17% | 28.36% |
| Category | TSM | NVDA |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company | NVIDIA Corporation |
| Sector | Semiconductors / Foundry | Technology |
| Industry | N/A | Semiconductors |
| Core business | World's largest and most advanced semiconductor contract manufacturer. Produces chips designed by Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and virtually every major fabless chip company. Leading-edge nodes include 3nm and 2nm. Building new fabs in Arizona, Japan, and Germany. | Designer of GPUs for gaming, data center AI training and inference, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. Blackwell architecture powers the latest H200/B200/GB200 data center products. CUDA software ecosystem is a critical competitive moat. Revenue driven primarily by Data Center segment. |
| Investor focus | Advanced node (3nm/2nm) capacity utilisation, AI chip production ramp for NVIDIA and AMD, geographic diversification of fab capacity, and gross margin sustainability. | Data center GPU demand from hyperscalers and enterprises, Blackwell supply ramp, CUDA ecosystem durability, automotive and robotics revenue growth, and margin trajectory. |
- →Irreplaceable position in advanced semiconductor manufacturing — no competitor is within 2-3 process generations at scale
- →Every major AI chip (NVIDIA H100/H200/B200, AMD MI300, Apple Silicon) is manufactured exclusively by TSMC
- →Geographic diversification into Arizona and Japan reduces long-term supply chain concentration risk
- →Dominant AI training and inference GPU platform — CUDA is the de facto standard for AI developers globally
- →Blackwell architecture delivers step-change performance improvements, driving continued upgrade cycles from cloud customers
- →Software ecosystem (CUDA, cuDNN, TensorRT) creates a deep moat that AMD and Intel cannot quickly replicate
- →Taiwan geopolitical risk is the central long-term risk factor — any conflict would disrupt global semiconductor supply
- →Arizona and Japan fabs have been more expensive and slower to ramp than Taiwan operations
- →Customer concentration — Apple is the largest customer; NVIDIA AI chip demand is now a major driver
- →Hyperscaler customers (Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft) are all developing custom AI chips that could partially substitute NVIDIA GPUs
- →Very high revenue concentration in data center GPU — a demand pause or inventory build would sharply impact earnings
- →Export controls restrict sales to China — a major revenue loss that competitors in China could fill over time
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