a lot people on hacker news believed if you throw enough money into something like China is doing with semi industry that somehow you can get your fab into a leading fab.
you can't just build something with off the shelves equipment. if that's the case then China big fund in 2014 (before trade war, China already pouring money into semi industry) already bearing fruits but SMIC have to poach TSMC engineers to get them into 14nm.
leading foundry like TSMC pour in a lot of money into R&D with their partners. TSMC's ecosystem along is unrivaled. there is also the trust issue. TSMC's main and only business is making chip for their customers unlike Samsung which is a Conglomerate.
what the author said about Apple is true(move away from Samsung's supply chain). that's why Apple is now a core customer of TSMC.
edit: i recall a interview with Morris Chang by a Chinese reporter. she bring up the question about the Chinese big fund. she say if Chinese govrt throw its weight behind the semi industry. it will over take TSMC. Chang said you can't buy "experiences" it will take time for Chinese fab to learn all the mistakes and gain the know-hows. there's a lot going into the production than simply buying semi equipment and somehow magically you can get to the yield level that'll be profitable. Intel's 10nm yield problem is the example of that. sorry, English is not my first language.
