Remember when everyone was asking if the AI hype train was running out of steam? Well, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) just walked into the room and said “hold my beer.”
The chip-making giant absolutely crushed Q3 earnings on Thursday, posting $33.1 billion in revenue – that’s a whopping 40.8% jump from last year and 10% higher than last quarter. But here’s the kicker: their CEO basically stood up and said “AI is just getting started, folks.”
C.C. Wei, TSMC’s CEO, wasn’t being subtle about it either. He straight-up told investors that the company is “convinced that the AI megatrend is strengthening.” Translation: we’re making so many AI chips we can barely keep up, and it’s only going to get crazier.
Wall Street ate this up like free pizza at a startup. The major indexes all jumped in morning trading, with the Nasdaq leading the charge up 0.54%. Even Nvidia and Broadcom caught some of that good TSMC energy, both climbing 1%.
But wait, there’s more! (I know, I sound like an infomercial, but stick with me.) TSMC also raised their full-year guidance, which in corporate speak means “we’re going to make even more money than we thought.” When a company that makes the brains for basically every AI system on the planet says business is booming, you listen.
The timing couldn’t be better, honestly. Just when investors were getting nervous about trade war drama – thanks to some fresh China tariff tensions this week – TSMC swooped in with results so good they made everyone forget about geopolitics for a hot minute.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had been playing hardball earlier this week, basically telling Wall Street not to expect the administration to go easy on China just to prop up stock prices. But when you’ve got companies posting 40% revenue growth because AI demand is through the roof, suddenly those trade war worries feel a lot less scary.
And it’s not just TSMC riding this wave. Foxconn (yeah, the folks who make your iPhone) just revealed their chairman has been having cozy chats with OpenAI and plans to meet with Nvidia soon. OpenAI has been on an absolute deal-making spree lately, signing contracts left and right with everyone from AMD to Oracle.
Here’s the thing that’s got everyone excited: we’re not just seeing one company do well. We’re seeing an entire ecosystem of AI-related businesses absolutely printing money. When the company that makes the chips is raising guidance AND the company that might assemble the hardware is making friends with the AI kingpins, that’s what we call a trend.
Despite all the trade war noise this week, the S&P 500 is still up nearly 1% since Friday. Turns out, when companies are making this much money from AI, investors are willing to look past a little political drama.
So yeah, the AI trade isn’t dead. If anything, TSMC just proved it’s more alive than ever. And Wall Street? They’re absolutely here for it.