Morris Chang founded TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker. Photo: Sam Yeh / AFP
Microchips run everything. They're in your phone, your car, your microwave - there might even be one in your kettle.
The best microchips in the world are made by TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
TSMC is so good, they've put Western tech companies and militaries streets ahead of China - and China is not happy about it.
So how did TSMC become the most important company in the world, and could it bring the United States and China to the brink of war?
The birth of an idea
In 1958, a then 27-year-old Morris Chang was working at a microchip factory in Dallas belonging to Texas Instruments, and he had a problem.
The process of making them was so complex, almost none of the chips were working correctly.
This was a Harvard-educated man who fled from China as a teen. It was time to prove himself.
He started fiddling with the factory's settings, and within weeks, the factory's yield was up to 20 percent, then 30 percent.
His bosses noticed how successful he'd been, and promoted him. Texas Instruments paid for him to get his PhD. They gave him bigger and bigger responsibilities.
Years went by, and Chang developed an idea that would change the course of his life, and the future of the world.
Morris Chang, 92, has retired from TSMC but still appears at public events. Photo: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited / AFP
You see, just like Texas Instruments, all tech companies at the time were expending enormous amounts of time and effort figuring out how to run good in-house microchip factories.
But Chang thought that was silly.
Microchips are probably the hardest thing in the world to manufacture. It requires unbelievably complicated and expensive machines, running in the cleanest environment on earth.
Chang thought the tech companies should focus on designing the microchips, and outsource the actual manufacture to a company that specialises in it.
Chang suggested this to Texas Instruments over and over, but they never budged.
Eventually, he was shifted sideways into a dead end role, and he quit.
While Texas Instruments did not see Chang's vision, Taiwan did.
The Taiwanese government offered him a blank cheque to build a company that would make Taiwan the microchip capital of the world - the place all tech companies go to get their chips made.
They weren't going to design a perfect microchip. They were going to design the perfect microchip factory.
And thus, the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was born, with Chang at its head.
TSMC dominates the industry
The TSMC factories in Taiwan are incredibly sterile and efficient. Photo: Sam Yeh / AFP
Forty years on from when it was first founded, TSMC is now making the smallest chips in the world.
In the chip world, smaller means not only that they take up less space, but they're also more energy efficient and powerful.
And TSMC can make them faster than anyone else.
TSMC is the most valuable company in Asia, and last year, the 8th most valuable in the world.
It's responsible for 5 percent of Taiwan's GDP, and 7 percent of its electricity consumption.
TSMC pumps out close to 60 percent of the semiconductor chips used around the world and makes 90 percent of the most advanced technology used in phones and laptops all the way to missile systems.
It's an extraordinary situation - you've got a resource that's needed for basically everything in the modern world coming from one place, making it the most valuable and indispensable chip company in the world.
TSMC is so essential to the global economy that Taiwanese media calls it the "sacred mountain protecting the island" from invasion by Communist China.
But is it actually protecting them, or is it a giant target?
China-Taiwan tensions cause global anxiety
US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping both see TSMC microchips as a crucial asset. Photo: AFP
Beijing has conducted massive military exercises close to Taiwan, raising fears that Chinese President Xi Jinping will fulfil his promise to take control of Taiwan - either with an invasion, or a blockade.
Should China take Taiwan, it would have control of TSMC - one of the world's most valuable resources.
China could stop selling the West chips or sell them at such high prices that it makes non-Chinese companies unprofitable.
To try and get around that, the US, Germany and Japan have convinced TSMC to start construction on factories in their countries, to ensure a supply of chips to the US and its allies.
Some pundits have suggested that the US should threaten to destroy TSMC's Taiwanese factories if China tries to invade, hoping this would be a strong disincentive.
Chang is now 92, and told the New York Times that he doesn't think invasion is likely.
But as the Chinese military increases its presence in the sea and sky around Taiwan, some American investors, like billionaire Warren Buffett, also 92, have decided the risk is too great, and have sold their stake in TSMC.
- This story was originally published by the ABC