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The irony is that the more of TSMC's capacity Intel contracts, the less AMD has access to.

Paying TSMC to fab chips is going to cost more than producing chips in their own fabs, reducing Intel's profit margin the more they do so.

TSMC also knows full well that Intel will switch back to their own fabs the instant it's practical for them to do so, making them a less reliable long term customer than Apple, AMD, etc. and so won't be inclined to give them priority or much of a break on pricing.

Between Intel, Apple and Nvidia, AMD might catch the short end of the stick there.

AMD and TSMC have really excellent relationship. Nvidia on the other hand does not, since it's rumoured most of their next gen GPUs are going to be made on Samsung 8nm because TSMC bid high against Nvidia and wouldn't budge. Apple might be the only company with a better relationship with TSMC than AMD. Apple and AMD together should be able to keep Intel's pressure low.

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