What if a TSMC packaging bottleneck caps AI chip output?
A CoWoS packaging bottleneck is a supply shock, not a demand shock: it caps accelerator output and lifts spot GPU prices, so TSMC (the choke point) falls on output risk while the scarcity is bullish for incumbent pricing. This is the recurring 2023-24 CoWoS-constraint story that repeatedly gated Nvidia shipments. Forward angle: roots correctly show ai_capex positive — demand is intact; the move is about who captures the scarcity rent (TSMC/SK Hynix) versus who is volume-rationed.
Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A TSMC advanced-packaging bottleneck caps accelerator output, lifting lead times and spot GPU prices. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▲ · Semiconductor supply risk ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.