Taipei, June 27 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, has been listed as among the "100 Most Influential Companies" in 2025 by Time magazine.
Time's new list comprises "businesses making an extraordinary impact around the world," the magazine said when it released the list on Thursday.
The companies were categorized into five groups: Pioneers, Leaders, Innovators, Titans and Disruptors.
Categorizing TSMC as a Titan, Time described the company as the "brain" behind everything from smartphones to data centers.
"Surging demand for its cutting-edge AI chips, which are optimized for tasks like machine learning and neural networks, helped TSMC beat analyst estimates in the first quarter of 2025," the magazine said.
However, those chips place TSMC at the center of the trade war between the United States and China, making it "a focal point of geopolitical tension over AI's future," it said.
Meanwhile, other companies in the Titan category included Berkshire Hathaway, whose chairman and CEO is Warren Buffett, streaming service provider Netflix, tech conglomerate Meta, and Amazon, an American multinational technology company.
ASML, a Dutch company that supplies photolithography systems to the semiconductor industry, was listed in the category of Pioneer.
U.S. AI chip giant Nvidia and South Korean conglomerate Samsung Electronics are absent from the Time list this year.
According to the magazine, the list was compiled based on factors such as qualities, impact, innovation, ambition and success, after suggestions and applications from various sectors, and by the magazine's contributors and correspondents around the world.
