TSMC revenue jumps 37% in January; AI spending marches on

[TAIPEI] Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) January sales grew at its fastest speed in months, in a sign of a sustained global artificial intelligence (AI) spending, even as concerns persist about an industry bubble.

The contract chipmaker for Nvidia reported a 37 per cent rise in January revenue to NT$401.3 billion (S$16.1 billion), above the 30 per cent revenue growth it expects for the full year.

However, the comparison against the year before may have been affected by the Chinese New Year holidays, which in 2025 fell in January.

TSMC, which also produces chips for Apple, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of a surge in AI-related investment, due to its role in manufacturing advanced AI accelerators. 

In particular, the demand for data centre chips is spurring the company to earmark as much as US$56 billion in capital spending this year, which would be up a quarter from 2025.

On Friday (Feb 6), Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang called the capital expenditure spree a “once-in-a-generation infrastructure buildout”. 

SEE ALSO

Intel, AMD notify customers in China of lengthy waits for CPUs

Taiwan says 40% shift of chip capacity to US is ‘impossible’

US plans Big Tech carve-out from next chip tariffs, FT reports

Asean Intelligence

Get insights into businesses across South-east Asia

Get the free report

But the mammoth spending by large tech companies such as Amazon and Meta Platforms is also worrying investors who wonder if AI will benefit those betting the most.

The circular nature of many data centre agreements is also causing fear, especially among those who have been hurt by boom-and-bust tech cycles in the past. BLOOMBERG