A wave of new AI chip companies across Asia is running into the same wall — getting TSMC to make their chips — which is bad news for startups and good news for TSMC's pricing power.

• Thousands of Asian startups now design AI chips but own no factories, so they all need the same handful of foundries.
• TSMC holds about three-quarters of the contract chipmaking market, with Samsung a distant second, leaving startups little choice.
• Landing a spot on TSMC's customer list has become as important as the chip design itself.
• South Korea's FuriosaAI is one of the few that got in, and even it calls the process of lining up capacity, memory, packaging and customers very complicated.
• India's Agrani Labs is raising over $100 million, but investors say even that plus top design talent may not be enough to buy a place in line.

Outlook: With the world racing to build AI computing power, access to advanced manufacturing — not money or engineering — will decide which of these startups survive.