"Apple is smart. If the AI capex cycle flattens in late '27 as models hit diminishing returns, does Apple regain pricing power simply by being the only customer that can guarantee wafer commits five years out?"

That's the take I would pursue if I were Apple.

A quiet threat of "We buy wafers on consumer demand curves. You’re selling them on venture capital and hype"

Why should that change TSMC decision making even a little?

The reality is that TSMC has no competition capable of shipping an equivalent product. If AI fizzles out completely, the only way Apple can choose to not use TSMC is if they decide to ship an inferior product.

A world where TSMC drains all the venture capital out of all the AI startups, using NVidia as an intermediary, and then all the bubble pops and they all go under is a perfectly happy place for TSMC. In these market conditions they are asking cash upfront. The worst that can happen is that they overbuild capacity using other people's money that they don't have to pay back, leaving them in an even more dominant position in the crash that follows.

Nvidia is not a venture capital outlet. They are a self-sustaining business with several high-margin customers that will buy out their whole product line faster than any iPhone or Mac.

From TSMC's perspective, Apple is the one that needs financial assistance. If they wanted the wafers more than Nvidia, they'd be paying more. But they don't.