TSMC Profit Surge
- TSMC reported a 58% profit jump driven by demand for advanced process nodes used in AI chips. (x.com) - The foundry said it's fabricating 3nm and 2nm-class nodes for customers including NVIDIA and AMD. (x.com) - Reports noted increased capex and insider purchases as TSMC scales for generative‑AI compute demand. ( )
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing said first-quarter net income jumped 58.3% as orders for its most advanced chips kept climbing. (pr.tsmc.com) The company reported net income of NT$572.48 billion on revenue of NT$1.134 trillion for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Revenue rose 35.1% from a year earlier, and gross margin widened to 66.2% from 58.8% a year earlier. (pr.tsmc.com) The smallest manufacturing nodes drove much of that mix shift. Three-nanometer chips made up 25% of wafer revenue, 5-nanometer chips made up 36%, and advanced nodes at 7-nanometer and below reached 74% of wafer revenue. (pr.tsmc.com) A foundry is a chip factory for companies that design semiconductors but do not build them. TSMC sits in that role for much of the artificial-intelligence market, turning designs from firms such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices into finished silicon. (tsmc.com) The demand is showing up most clearly in TSMC’s high-performance computing business, the category that includes many artificial-intelligence and data-center chips. That segment rose 20% from the prior quarter and accounted for 61% of first-quarter revenue, up from 59% a year earlier. (investor.tsmc.com) TSMC told investors it expects second-quarter revenue of $39.0 billion to $40.2 billion, above the $35.90 billion it posted in the first quarter. The company also raised its 2026 revenue-growth outlook to more than 30% in U.S. dollar terms. (investor.tsmc.com) (money.usnews.com) Management said it is pushing capital spending toward the high end of its existing range to add capacity for 3-nanometer production as customers build more artificial-intelligence systems. On the earnings call, TSMC said it was executing a “global capacity plan” for a multiyear pipeline of demand for 3-nanometer technology used in smartphones, high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and automotive chips. (money.usnews.com) (investor.tsmc.com) The next node is already affecting operations. TSMC said inventory days rose to 80 in the quarter, from 74 in the prior quarter, primarily because of its 2-nanometer ramp and stronger 3-nanometer demand. (investor.tsmc.com) TSMC’s update lands as investors treat the company as a readout on spending across the artificial-intelligence supply chain, from chip designers to server makers. For now, the signal from Hsinchu is that customers are still paying up for the most advanced manufacturing TSMC can deliver. (reuters.com) (pr.tsmc.com)
