Taiwan Risk Calculator
Over 90% of leading-edge logic is made on one island. Model your Taiwan supply exposure against earthquake, blockade and conflict scenarios — expected loss, worst case, and how long the gap lasts.
| Scenario | Annual % | TW loss % | Dur. wk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Taiwan exposure console
Each bar = Taiwan share × scenario probability × supply loss. High-probability earthquakes and low-probability conflict can contribute comparably to expected loss.
With 70% of supply from Taiwan, expected annual loss is 4.3% and the worst case (Armed conflict) would cut 70% of total supply for 24 weeks before alternatives activate.
High single-geography concentration — for leading-edge there's no fast substitute, so reduce share where nodes allow and build strategic inventory. Plan the tail (conflict) separately from the expected case.
Feed these probabilities into the Supply Risk Analyzer; assess China exposure in China Risk.
Why one island holds the industry
Over 90% of the world's leading-edge logic is fabricated in Taiwan, overwhelmingly by TSMC. For advanced nodes there is effectively no near-term alternative — concentration this extreme has no precedent in a critical industry.
Even multiple suppliers don't help if they all fab in the same place. Taiwan exposure is a single-geography risk: one earthquake, blockade or conflict hits everyone sourcing from the island at once.
New leading-edge fabs (Arizona, Japan, Germany) take years to build and qualify. In a sudden disruption, the continuity gap is bounded by how fast you can activate alternatives — which for advanced nodes is painfully slow.
Conflict scenarios are low-probability but near-total in impact. That's the hardest risk to plan for — rare enough to discount, severe enough to be existential. Expected-value thinking must be paired with worst-case continuity planning.
The most concentrated risk in tech
There is no precedent in any critical industry for the concentration that exists in advanced semiconductors. More than nine in ten of the world's leading-edge logic chips are fabricated on a single island, overwhelmingly by a single company, built up over decades of capital, talent and ecosystem that competitors are only now starting to replicate at enormous cost. The chips that run AI, flagship phones and high-end computing have, for the most advanced nodes, effectively one source — and that source sits on an active fault line at the centre of the world's most consequential geopolitical fault line too.
The crucial reframing is that this is a geographic risk, not a vendor risk. A company can feel diversified across multiple suppliers and still have every one of them fabricating in Taiwan — so a single earthquake, a blockade, or a conflict hits all of them at once. Vendor-level concentration analysis misses this entirely; you have to look through to where the silicon is actually made. That's why a tool that models Taiwan share against geographic disruption scenarios captures something the standard supplier analysis cannot.
The scenarios demand two different planning modes. Earthquakes and droughts are relatively likely but partial and short — classic expected-value risks you can weight by probability and impact. Conflict is the opposite: low probability but potentially total and prolonged, the textbook tail risk that expected-value thinking systematically under-prepares for. Sound planning pairs the two: routine mitigation for the common partial disruptions, and explicit worst-case continuity planning for the rare existential one. And in every case the continuity gap is bounded by how fast alternatives can activate — which, for leading-edge fabs that take years to build and qualify, is the hardest constraint of all.
Use this calculator to quantify your exposure across scenarios, separate the expected case from the worst case, and see how reducing Taiwan share or pre-qualifying alternatives moves the risk. Feed the disruption probabilities into the Supply Risk Analyzer for an overall resilience score, assess the related China exposure, and check that your supplier diversification isn't an illusion in the Vendor Concentration calculator.
Trusted by Geopolitical Risk Teams
“Separating expected annual loss from worst-case immediate loss and the continuity gap is exactly the right framing — earthquakes are an expected-value problem, conflict is a tail-risk continuity problem, and the tool forces you to plan for both. Editable scenarios let me run elevated-tension cases. The best Taiwan-exposure structuring tool I've used.”
“The continuity gap bounded by alternative-activation time quantifies precisely why pre-qualification is worth the cost — shrinking that gap from 24 to 8 weeks moves the risk score visibly. The point that for leading-edge there's no fast substitute is sobering and true. Feeds our board risk register directly.”
“Honest about the geopolitical-probability uncertainty and built for scenario analysis rather than false precision. Modeling 92% leading-edge Taiwan share made our concentration undeniable. Would love an inventory-bridge input, but pairing with the supply-risk analyzer covers it. Essential planning tool.”
“The single-geography-not-just-vendor insight is the one that changes minds — our 'diversified' suppliers all fab in Taiwan. Expected vs worst-case views in one screen, editable scenarios, instant risk score. Chains naturally into the China calculator and supply-risk analyzer. Fast, sober, indispensable.”
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expected = TW share × Σ(prob × loss) · worst = TW share × max loss · gap = min(duration, alt activation) · Last reviewed: 2026-06