ARM CEO Rene Haas recently reignited the long-running debate over Intel’s ability to compete with TSMC, claiming that the American chipmaker has been “punished by time” for missing key opportunities and technological transitions. 
Speaking on the All In Podcast, Haas reflected on how Intel’s once-dominant position in the semiconductor world eroded over years of strategic missteps – and why catching up to TSMC now is not just difficult, but perhaps near impossible.
According to Haas, the problem isn’t just about making better chips. It’s about momentum, timing, and long-term investment. In his words, “It takes a long time to invest in fabs. It takes a long time to define architectures and ecosystems. If you miss a few, time will punish you.” He pointed directly at Intel’s historical failure to capitalize on the mobile revolution as one of the company’s most damaging mistakes – a missed train that continues to shape its struggles today.
In the mid-2000s, Intel’s leadership famously declined Apple’s offer to produce chips for the iPhone, believing the mobile market was too small and low-margin to be worth pursuing. Instead, Intel doubled down on desktop and laptop CPUs, leaving the mobile frontier to others. ARM-based designs – lightweight, efficient, and power-optimized – quickly became the foundation of every major smartphone, from iPhones to Androids. Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini later admitted that rejecting Apple’s proposal was one of the biggest regrets in the company’s history. That decision, as Haas notes, became a turning point: ARM surged forward, and Intel lost an entire generation of technology leadership.
But Haas didn’t stop at mobile. He also called out Intel’s delay in adopting EUV lithography (Extreme Ultraviolet), the cutting-edge chip manufacturing technology that allows smaller, faster, and more power-efficient transistors. “They were punished in manufacturing for being late to EUV,” Haas said. “They decided not to invest at the rate that TSMC did a decade ago, and they fell behind.” Today, TSMC’s mastery of EUV underpins its ability to produce chips at 3nm and beyond – the very heart of devices made by Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD. Intel, meanwhile, is still fighting to stabilize its foundry roadmap, promising that its upcoming 18A process will finally close the gap.
The message from Haas is brutally clear: in the semiconductor industry, lateness is fatal. Once you fall behind in a cycle, catching up becomes exponentially harder. Every delay compounds as software ecosystems, toolchains, and partnerships move forward without you. “The cycle gets on top of you,” Haas emphasized. “You can’t just throw money at it and expect to recover.”
Yet, the ARM CEO’s comments also touch on a broader cultural problem. He highlighted that in the West, manufacturing is often viewed as “blue-collar work,” not as something prestigious or aspirational. In contrast, in Taiwan, working at TSMC is considered a high-status career. “If you say you work for TSMC, it’s seen as an achievement,” Haas explained. “In the U.S., we haven’t built that mindset – we haven’t trained a generation to view manufacturing as valuable or innovative.”
This cultural divide is a key obstacle to America’s ambitions for semiconductor independence. Despite massive government initiatives like the CHIPS Act and political pressure to localize production, Haas believes real change will require more than subsidies. It demands an overhaul of how society views engineering, manufacturing, and technical labor – values that countries like Taiwan and South Korea have embedded deeply into their education and industrial systems.
Intel’s current leadership, under Pat Gelsinger, has been vocal about reversing the company’s decline. Gelsinger’s “IDM 2.0” strategy aims to reclaim manufacturing leadership and turn Intel into a competitive global foundry. The company has poured billions into new fabs in Arizona, Ohio, and Germany, and is aggressively chasing partnerships to attract clients like NVIDIA and Qualcomm. But as Haas implied, money alone can’t buy back lost time. Technological ecosystems, trust, and execution speed can’t be rebuilt overnight – not when TSMC’s supply chains and client relationships have matured for decades.
Haas’s remarks underscore a truth many in the tech world already recognize: Intel’s challenge isn’t just technical; it’s existential. The company is no longer the default leader – it’s the challenger now. And while Intel’s resurgence could reshape the global chip landscape, Haas’s tone suggests skepticism that it can ever fully reclaim the top. As he put it, “Once time punishes you in this business, you don’t just recover – you have to reinvent.”