As much as you may lament, it was capitalism that weeded out the other players in this ecosystem and pushed TSMC to the top of the food chain. When TSMC built its world-class fabs, it was in broad daylight. Intel knew it was surrendering control of the fab process, but it wanted to be a niche high-end chip designer. This worked well for a long time, when chips were not the trendiest topics in tech. Re-entering a game like this was never going to be easy. Even if Intel were ever to catch up, it would take a few years at minimum. Hey!! Even GlobalFoundary is at least a few generations behind TSMC. Remember, TSMC is a moving target traveling at enormous speed. TSMC has agreed to open a factory in the US, which could alleviate some of the pressure on the US in the race to catch up, but bear in mind they won't be manufacturing any of their latest chips here. This is a long road to recovery !!