AI PC大战：Đừng đặt cược vào phe, hãy đặt cược vào trạm thu phí

Original Author: Roger Lee, BIT US Stock Market Special Analyst

With 21 years of experience in investment banking, asset management, and financial institutions, specializing in long-term research on the AI industry chain, US stock market macro liquidity, and options strategies.

Report Date: June 4, 2026

Investment Summary

My core conclusion is simple: In the AI PC war, don't bet on factions; bet on toll booths. TSMC as the foundation, AMD for offense, ARM as a small supporting position, Intel only as a lottery ticket, Qualcomm waiting for repricing, and Nvidia don't chase FOMO after news-driven surges.

Nvidia and MediaTek entering the AI PC space, on the surface, adds a new chip combination for consumer PCs, but essentially it represents the Windows on-device AI ecosystem moving from isolated pilot projects to multi-player competition. My judgment is that this war should not be simplified into a religious "x86 vs. Arm" alignment; what truly deserves study is who can transcend the upgrade cycle, consistently capture gross margins, cash flow, and pricing power in the industry chain.

I view AI PC as a three-tier opportunity: The first tier is the advanced manufacturing toll booth. No matter who wins, TSMC finds it easier to collect the toll. The second tier is the spillover of computing power and platforms, with AMD and NVDA representing the x86 offensive and GPU software stack extension, respectively. The third tier is architectural diffusion and turnaround potential. Both ARM and INTC have elasticity, but position discipline must be stricter.

1. Industry Judgment: AI PC Moves from Concept to Shipment Verification Phase

Gartner previously estimated in 2024 that AI PC shipments would reach 114.225 million units in 2025, accounting for 43% of the PC market. After a 2025 update, disrupted by tariffs and purchasing rhythm, the forecast was revised down to 77.792 million units, or 31%, but it still expects 143.113 million units in 2026, a penetration rate of 54.7%. The insight I gain from this data isn't that "AI PC demand is falsified," but that short-term rhythms will fluctuate, but the long-term direction of standardization remains unchanged.

From an investment perspective, the real difficulty of AI PC isn't "whether it has an NPU," but whether users are willing to upgrade their devices for the local AI experience. If the application layer only stays at meeting minutes, image generation, and simple assistants, upgrade elasticity will be lower than the market's most optimistic expectations. However, if enterprise-side begins to adopt privacy computing, low-latency inference, and local knowledge base deployment as standard configurations, AI PC will transform from a consumer electronics story into an enterprise IT upgrade story.

2. Competitive Landscape: Chipmakers Fight, TSMC Collects the Toll

The superficial narrative of AI PC is Arm challenging x86, but I am more concerned about where the profit pool migrates. NVIDIA is strong in GPUs and the AI software stack, AMD is strong in x86 CPU and GPU combinations, Qualcomm is strong in low power consumption and communication, Intel is strong in legacy ecosystem and enterprise channels. They each have advantages, but the commonality is also obvious: High-end chips cannot bypass advanced manufacturing processes.

TrendForce disclosed that global wafer foundry revenue in Q2 2025 was approximately $41.7 billion, with TSMC holding a 70.2% share. In Q4 2025, global foundry revenue was approximately $46.3 billion, with TSMC's share around 70.4%. This means as long as AI PCs, AI servers, mobile APs, and edge AI chips continue to compete for advanced processes, TSMC is not just a simple cyclical stock, but more like a toll gate for the entire AI hardware era.

I don't believe every new product launch is worth chasing, but I do believe that every time industry competition intensifies, one should ask the reverse question: If the winner is still uncertain, who can charge all winners? In the AI PC line, my answer remains advanced manufacturing processes, packaging, key IP, and platform software, not simply betting on a single architectural slogan.

3. Asset Ranking: Core Holding TSM, Offensive Play AMD, Elasticity Intel/ARM

In the past year, semiconductor stocks have already priced in AI PC, on-device AI, and computing power spillovers. Yahoo Finance daily prices show that within the sample period, AMD, Intel, ARM, and TSM all exhibited strong elasticity, but they represent different risk-return profiles. My approach isn't to buy all AI PC-related stocks together, but to layer them based on certainty, valuation discipline, and industry chain position.

My core conclusion is straightforward: This is not a war where you can only buy the winner; it's a war where you should buy the toll booth, the platform, and the company with deterministic cash flow. If the market gets overly excited on the day of a news release, I would rather wait. If a pullback brings the risk-return of good companies back into a reasonable range, I will prioritize TSM and AMD, and only then look at the elasticity opportunities in ARM and Intel.

4. Risk Warnings

The risks of this theme cannot be ignored. First, AI PC applications may fall short of expectations, leading to a less robust upgrade cycle than imagined. Second, if the improvement in Windows on Arm compatibility is too slow, the narratives of Qualcomm and new entrants will be suppressed. Third, tariffs, corporate purchasing pauses, and macroeconomic uncertainty can impact PC demand. Fourth, if there is a temporary mismatch in advanced process supply and demand, TSMC could also face valuation pullbacks. Fifth, valuations across the AI chain are relatively high; once US stock risk appetite declines, the assets with the greatest elasticity often correct the fastest.

Therefore, I tend to view AI PC as a long-term industrial migration, not a short-term news trade. The truly professional approach isn't to buy slogans on launch day, but to wait for sentiment to ebb and then buy the ecosystem, the toll booth, and the companies that can consistently deliver cash flow.

5. Explanation of Data Sources

Data References

This report was prepared by a special analyst. The views expressed in this report represent only the personal stance of the author and do not represent the views of the BIT platform. This material is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice.