TSMC up 35% on AI demand
Taiwan Semiconductor reported revenue growth of roughly 35% driven by surging AI demand, underscoring continued chip spending for large models (x.com). At the same time, CRDO announced a roughly $750 million deal to buy DustPhotonics for optical interconnect tech — a bet on next‑generation data‑center bandwidth (x.com).
Taiwan Semiconductor’s latest sales report showed the artificial intelligence buildout is still pulling huge orders through the chip supply chain. (tsmc.com) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said on April 10 that revenue for January through March 2026 rose 35.1% from a year earlier to NT$1.134 trillion, or about $35.7 billion. March revenue alone reached NT$415.19 billion, up 45.2% from March 2025. (tsmc.com) Reuters reported the first-quarter figure beat market forecasts and tied the jump to continued spending on artificial intelligence applications, with Taiwan Semiconductor remaining the main contract manufacturer for advanced chips designed by companies such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. (reuters.com) A foundry is a chip factory for other companies’ designs, and Taiwan Semiconductor is the biggest one in the world. When cloud companies order more processors for large language models, that demand shows up first in the factories making the chips and then in the links moving data between them. (tsmc.com) That second bottleneck is why Credo Technology moved on DustPhotonics. Credo said on April 13 it agreed to buy the Israeli optical-connectivity company for $750 million in cash plus about 0.92 million Credo shares. (credosemi.com) Credo said DustPhotonics would add silicon photonics technology to its lineup for 800 gigabit, 1.6 terabit, and 3.2 terabit links. In plain terms, those are the optical lanes that shuttle data between racks and clusters when electrical connections start running into power and distance limits. (credosemi.com) DustPhotonics says its platform is built to raise data rates while cutting power use and cost, using silicon photonics to move light through chips and modules instead of relying only on copper. That is the part of the data-center stack getting more attention as model training and inference spread across larger clusters. (dustphotonics.com) The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of calendar 2026, according to Credo. If Taiwan Semiconductor’s numbers show the compute side of the artificial intelligence boom, Credo’s deal shows where suppliers think the networking side is heading next. (credosemi.com)
