Rapidus seems really astonishing. Actually I don’t get it.

I hate to ask because, actually, it would be super great to have a little hope about new semiconductor manufacturing not having gotten impossible. Are they… for real?

They licensed IBM’s 2nm process and are commercializing it. IBM, despite having sold its fabrication plants, still develops new processes. They just don’t take the risk of trying to implement them in production, and let others who license their processes take those risks.