In the autumn of 2026, AMD announced a 10% price increase across its full lineup of consumer chips — GPUs, CPUs, and chipsets — as the cost of manufacturing at TSMC, the world's dominant foundry, rippled downstream through the supply chain. This is the quiet arithmetic of modern technology: the price of silicon is set not only by the companies whose names appear on the box, but by the foundries that shape the raw material into thought. For consumers and builders, the increase is a reminder that the economics of computing have never been as simple as the devices themselves appear.