MediaTek launched its Dimensity 9600 Pro on September 15 using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's 2-nanometer technology, marking another major customer for TSMC's newest and most advanced process node.
The company's neural processor delivers 51% higher LLM prefill performance than the previous generation, MediaTek said. The firm had already taped out a 2nm design with TSMC last year, and the first smartphones powered by the new chips are expected soon. MediaTek has previously supplied flagship silicon to Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, broadening demand beyond Apple-class customers and high-performance computing.
TSMC is already seeing the node reflected in its financials. Two-nanometer processes accounted for 3% of wafer revenue in the second quarter, and management expects a steep ramp in the second half. The bull case hinges on strong 2nm adoption supporting years of leading-edge pricing and utilization. On the flip side, TSMC warned the ramp could dilute second-half gross margin by 3 to 4 percentage points even as demand remains robust.
Insider Monkey tracked 249 hedge funds long TSM in Q2 2026, up from 234 in Q1. Fisher Asset Management increased its TSM stake by 2%.
In a separate development, Nvidia invested $3.5 billion in MediaTek convertible bonds on August 31 and expanded a partnership that will integrate MediaTek custom XPUs into Nvidia's NVLink Fusion rack-scale systems. Alphabet also participated in MediaTek's $3.9 billion bond sale. Reuters reported that MediaTek's first accelerator for a major U.S. cloud customer is slated for mass production in late 2026.
For Nvidia, the partnership could transform custom silicon from a potential competitor into part of its platform ecosystem. If hyperscalers continue building more in-house accelerators, NVLink Fusion allows Nvidia to monetize the surrounding rack architecture and software stack. The competitive risk is equally apparent: MediaTek is becoming a more credible custom-chip supplier, and those in-house accelerators could siphon workloads away from Nvidia GPUs.
Hedge fund sentiment toward Nvidia also strengthened. Insider Monkey data showed 285 hedge funds with reportable NVDA longs in Q2, up from 275 in Q1. Fisher Asset Management raised its Nvidia position by 3%. As of August 31, 298.30 million Nvidia shares were shorted, representing 1.29% of float with 2.1 days to cover.
