大摩还表示，台积电仍然是其在AI半导体供应链中的首选，台积电保证了AI真实的需求，且这家云服务提供商正在设计自己的AI芯片（ASIC定制芯片），这提升了市场对AI半导体的信心。The current market is focusing on the capital expenditure of cloud computing giants and the allocation of Taiwan Semiconductor's CoWoS packaging capacity. Daiwa believes that AMD seems to have reduced its CoWoS orders at Taiwan Semiconductor in 2025, but this capacity is immediately taken over by nvidia, with nvidia's demand expected to account for 63% by 2025. Capital expenditure on cloud computing is accelerating due to investment in GPU chips, and year-on-year growth is expected to peak in the first half of 2025.
As the semiconductor industry enters the fast lane, the market's focus shifts to the capital expenditures of American cloud computing giants and the allocation of taiwan semiconductor's CoWoS (packaging) capacity, which may lead to more intense market fluctuations in the short term.
On October 23, analysts Charlie Chan and Daniel Yen from Morgan Stanley released a report stating that they are currently optimistic about artificial intelligence, but the market's expectations for capital expenditures in the fourth quarter may be too high, ultimately leading to less than ideal outcomes. Cloud AI semiconductor customers are still undergoing production transformation, with more purchases expected in the first half of 2025.
Morgan Stanley also stated that taiwan semiconductor remains its first choice in the AI semiconductor supply chain. Taiwan semiconductor ensures the real demand for AI, and this cloud computing service provider is designing its own AI chips (custom ASIC chips), boosting market confidence in AI semiconductors.
CoWoS reshuffling, nvidia takes over AMD.
Overall, taiwan semiconductor's CoWoS capacity is expected to reach 3.7 million wafers in 2024, and this number will increase to 7.18 million wafers by 2025.
In its report, Morgan Stanley pointed out that recent dynamics in CoWoS demand have changed. Due to uncertainties in demand for the new AI chip MI325, it seems that AMD has already reduced some of its CoWoS wafer orders at taiwan semiconductor for 2025, with demand decreasing from 11% in 2024 to 13% in 2025. However, taiwan semiconductor's order situation appears to be still robust, with this capacity immediately taken over by nvidia. By 2025, nvidia's demand share is expected to reach 63%.
Intel's AI chip manufacturer Habana, under Intel, has not changed its wafer orders at taiwan semiconductor. Marvell, on the other hand, is increasing its 2025 orders at taiwan semiconductor to three times that of 2024, and Alchip has also started to place orders for some CoWoS for certain 3nm projects.
It is worth noting that Taiwan Semiconductor also mentioned in the recent earnings conference call that the company is designing its own ai chips (ASIC), and seems to have reserved 30% of its CoWoS capacity for ASIC.
In addition, Morgan Stanley also predicts that if Amazon's Trainium 2 production reaches 0.2 million units in 2024, then based on the CoWoS capacity reservation, by 2025, Trainium 2 production could reach 0.4 million units, while Inferentia 2.5 production could reach 0.5-0.6 million units.
As for Intel's Gaudi 3, Morgan Stanley believes that the number of AI servers in 2025 is about 0.02-0.025 million units, which means the chip consumption is 0.16-0.2 million units, consistent with the 16k CoWoS reservation quantity, and the chip production is about 0.2 million units.
Capital expenditure on cloud computing may peak in the first half of 2025.
Regarding the capital expenditure of cloud computing giants, Morgan Stanley points out that in the past cycles, a 2-3 year growth cycle is typically followed by 2-4 quarters of decline. The decline cycle refers to a 'slowing year-over-year growth,' particularly from the slowdown of large-scale cloud computing companies in the USA.
Second-quarter 2024 data on US cloud capital expenditure shows a rebound from the bottom in the second and third quarters of 2023. Due to investments in GPU servers, cloud capital expenditure growth is accelerating year-on-year.
Morgan Stanley states that if this cycle repeats, the growth cycle may continue into the first half of 2025.
Historical data shows that when datacenter construction was in its early stages (2005-2015), it was easier to see a significant increase in capital expenditures. After 2015, due to the slowdown of Moore's Law and the deceleration in sales growth of cloud computing service providers, capital expenditure growth tended to normalize. Morgan Stanley stated in the report that with the rapid development of GPUs and potential future monetization, capital expenditure may still grow strongly in the first quarter of 2025, exceeding 30% year-on-year.
"Therefore, based on historical trends, the cycle peak should occur in the first half of 2025."
Editor/rice
