Enlarge (credit: zf L via Getty )

The world’s leading semiconductor companies are racing to make so-called “2 nanometer” processor chips that will power the next generation of smartphones, data centers and artificial intelligence.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company remains the analysts’ favorite to maintain its global supremacy in the sector, but Samsung Electronics and Intel have identified the industry’s next leap forward as a chance to close the gap.

For decades, chipmakers have sought to make ever more compact products. The smaller the transistors on a chip, the lower the energy consumption and the higher their speed. Today, terms such as “2 nanometer” and “3 nanometer” are widely used as shorthand for each new generation of chip, rather than a semiconductor’s actual physical dimensions.