TSMC revenue climbs 39% in latest sign of AI spending boom

[TAIPEI] Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) revenue rose a better-than-anticipated 39 per cent in the June quarter, buoying expectations for a sustained post-ChatGPT boom in artificial intelligence (AI) spending.

The chipmaker for Nvidia and Apple sales climbed to NT$934 billion (S$41 billion) for the three months, based on its reported monthly revenue. That beat the average analyst projection for about NT$928 billion.

Investors have piled back into AI-linked companies, shaking off a funk that settled in after China’s DeepSeek cast doubt on whether the likes of Meta Platforms and Google needed to spend that much money on data centres. This week, Nvidia became the first company in history to hit a US$4 trillion valuation, underscoring investors’ renewed enthusiasm for companies such as TSMC, key to building the infrastructure for AI.

TSMC chief executive officer CC Wei reassured shareholders in June that AI chip demand still outstripped supply, and reaffirmed an outlook for 2025 sales to grow in the mid-20 per cent range in US dollar terms. His company has pledged to spend another US$100 billion ramping up manufacturing in Arizona, in addition to an expansion in Japan, Germany and back home.

As the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC sits at the heart of the global technology supply chain, producing cutting-edge chips for iPhones and Nvidia’s AI offerings.

While Nvidia is fuelling its growth, TSMC remains reliant on Apple and smartphone makers for most of its business.

For 2025, investors remain wary about the impact of tariffs on the global economy and the electronics sector.

The Trump administration’s trade war is prompting economists to scale back their forecasts for gross domestic product growth worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing. BLOOMBERG