New Delhi, Aug. 10 -- TOKYO - The camera in your next iPhone will almost certainly run on Sony silicon. So, in all probability, will the sensor behind the eye of the AI robot picking items from a warehouse shelf nearby.

that the rapid expansion of physical AI, the term for AI systems embedded in cars, robots and industrial machinery, will create sensor demand that looks less like a modest upgrade cycle and more like an entirely new market.

Sony holds roughly half the global market for image sensors, the chips that convert light into digital information. TSMC supplies the manufacturing muscle: Sony designs the sensor architecture, TSMC fabricates it, and the combination feeds into products ranging from iPhone camera modules to the lens s...