TSMC reports 77 percent profit surge thanks to sustained AI chip demand

The group is currently worth just under two trillion dollars on the stock exchange. This puts TSMC, as the first non-American company, in sixth place among the world's most valuable companies, behind NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet (Alphabet A (ex Google)), Microsoft and Amazon.

Following a share price rally of nearly 120 percent over the past twelve months, TSMC is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global boom around artificial intelligence. The group manufactures, among other things, high-performance chips for NVIDIA that are used in data centers for AI applications.

Share price and market reaction

Since the figures were released after the close of trading, the TSMC share was unable to react; it closed 1.26 percent higher on the Taiwan stock exchange on Friday at TWD 2,470. The late release time meant that investors were only able to fully react to the results on the following trading day.

Key revenue figures had already been published on Monday, which somewhat dampened the anticipation ahead of the full quarterly results. Nevertheless, the final result was significantly better than many analysts had expected with regard to profit.

Taiwan's role in the global semiconductor supply chain thus remains central: TSMC produces a large share of the most advanced processors used in AI systems, cloud services and modern smartphones. Geopolitical risks surrounding the island continue to be closely watched by investors.

Outlook: AI boom continues

Looking ahead to the current third quarter, the group itself expects continued strong capacity utilization. Industry observers do not see the AI boom as over yet, especially as major cloud providers such as Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon continue to ramp up their investments in data centers.

RBC Capital Markets also sees further potential: On 21.05.26 | NVIDIA Outperform | RBC Capital Markets – the analysts rated the US chip designer NVIDIA with an Outperform rating, which indirectly also supports suppliers such as TSMC.

Significance for the tech sector

Overall, the quarterly result underscores the shift in power within the tech industry: it is no longer traditional software companies, but rather semiconductor manufacturers and AI specialists that increasingly determine value development on the world's stock exchanges.

The report sent out by HSINCHU (dpa-AFX) also makes clear that TSMC has risen as the first non-American company into the ranks of the world's most valuable corporations – a novelty that underscores Taiwan's geopolitical significance for the global technology industry.