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TSMC profit soars but flags future hit amid Iran war
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. beat estimates last quarter as its profit surged 58%, but flagged a potential future hit from rising material costs amid the Iran war. Revenue was up 35.1% to NT$1.134 trillion (US$35.90 billion), above LSEG SmartEstimates of $1.127 trillion. Earnings per share soared 58.3% to $22.08 (US$3.49). “Our business in the first quarter was supported by strong demand for our leading-edge process technologies,” said senior VP and CFO Wendell Huang. “Moving into second quarter 2026, we expect our business to be supported by continued strong demand for our leading-edge process technologies.” The revenue and earnings beats come as TSMC has reportedly begun hiking prices on its advanced chips. It told clients that it would raise prices for these chips from 2026 through 2029, per Taiwanese outlet United Daily News. The company’s gross margin was 66.2% last quarter, increasing from 58.8% one year ago. TSMC credited this to cost improvement measures, higher capacity utilisation, and a favourable foreign exchange rate. Its operating margin was 58.1%, up from 48.5%. Advanced technologies represented 74% of its total wafer revenue, rising slightly from 73%. Shipments of 3-nanometre chips ac
Hardware
ASML earnings: Shares fall amid new China sales curbs
Semiconductor equipment supplier ASML beat earnings and revenue estimates last quarter, but shares fell amid newly-proposed export controls on chip sales to China. Net sales were EU€8.77 billion, up from €7.74 billion year-over-year and above LSEG consensus estimates of €8.5 billion. Net income was €2.76 billion, rising from €2.36 billion and surpassing estimates of €2.5 billion. “The semiconductor industry's growth outlook continues to solidify, driven by ongoing AI-related infrastructure investments. Demand for chips is outpacing supply,” said ASML president and CEO Christophe Fouquet. “In the past months, our customers have increased their expected short- and medium-term demand for our products. ASML's order intake continues to be very strong as a result, and we are closely aligned with our customers to support their demand in a combination of delivery of new systems and performance upgrades of their installed base.” ASML’s gross profit was €4.65 billion, compared with €4.18 billion one year ago. Its gross margin was 53%, down from 54%. The company sold 67 new lithography systems, which are used to manufacture chips, last quarter. This is a decline from 73 units one year ago, though the number of used lithography
Hardware
TSMC reports record revenue as price hikes start
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported record revenue last quarter as price increases on its advanced chips began to take effect. Revenue for the quarter ending in March was up 35% year-over-year to NT$1.13 trillion (US$35.6 billion), above LSEG consensus estimates of $1.13 trillion. This is at the upper end of the company’s guidance range for the quarter, which had projected revenue of US$34.6-35.8 billion. In March alone, TSMC’s revenue was $415.19 billion (US$13.1 billion), increasing 30.7% from February. The surge in revenue comes as TSMC reportedly raised prices on its advanced chips. It has told clients that it will hike prices for these chips from 2026 through 2029, Taiwanese outlet United Daily News reported in December. TSMC (TPE: 2330) shares are up 26.2% in 2026 to date. “This outperformance shows investors are becoming increasingly confident in Taiwan Semiconductor’s long-term story, even in a volatile market shaped by trade conflicts and geopolitical risks,” wrote Zacks analyst Anirudha Bhagat. The company’s full first-quarter earnings will be released on 16 April. Analysts expect earnings per share of US$3.29, rising from $2.12 year-over-year, per Zacks. TSMC’s Taiwan-listed shares close
Hardware
Broadcom to make chips for Google, compute for Anthropic
Broadcom will produce future generations of artificial intelligence chips for Google, the company said, and will provide Anthropic with computing capacity from Google’s processors. Broadcom will develop custom tensor processing units for Google, according to a securities filing. Anthropic will access 3.5 gigawatts of compute through Broadcom. “We have signed a new agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity that we expect to come online starting in 2027. This significant expansion of our compute infrastructure will power our frontier Claude models and help us serve extraordinary demand from customers worldwide,” wrote Anthropic. “This groundbreaking partnership with Google and Broadcom is a continuation of our disciplined approach to scaling infrastructure: we are building the capacity necessary to serve the exponential growth we have seen in our customer base while also enabling Claude to define the frontier of AI development,” said Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao. Under the deal, Broadcom will also supply networking components for Google’s AI server racks until 2031. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. Anthropic’s access to this computing cap
Hardware
Intel re-buys stake in Ireland plant, shares up 9%
Intel will repurchase a 49% stake in its Ireland manufacturing plant for US$14.2 billion (A$20.42 billion), sending shares up 9%. The company, which owns the remainder of the Fab 34 chipmaking plant, sold a 49% stake to Apollo Global Management for $11.2 billion in 2024. According to Intel, the purchase was driven by an improved balance sheet due to the increased use of its chips for artificial intelligence. “Our 2024 agreement was the right structure at the right time and provided Intel with meaningful flexibility, enabling us to accelerate critical initiatives,” said Intel CFO David Zinsner. “Today, we have a stronger balance sheet, improved financial discipline and an evolved business strategy. We appreciate Apollo’s continued collaboration to reach this outcome as we realign our capital structure with our long-term strategy.” The purchase will be funded by cash on hand and proceeds from the issuance of $6.5 billion in debt, Intel said. Intel’s revenue has been stabilising since the Fab 34 sale in 2024. Revenue that year fell by 2%, while in 2025 sales remained flat. Its free cash flow also rebounded to $2.22 billion, from a loss of $1.50 billion. Fab 34 produces processors, including the Intel Core Ultra a

Hardware
Micron shares plummet 10%; memory shortage continues
Shares in memory chip company Micron fell nearly 10% on Monday, continuing its post-earnings slide as it struggles to fill orders. Micron shares have shed 30% since releasing earnings on 18 March. While the company reported record revenue last quarter, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said its key customers would not receive their full orders due to the memory chip shortage. “Micron set new records across revenue, gross margin, EPS, and free cash flow in fiscal Q2, driven by a strong demand environment, tight industry supply, and our strong execution, and we expect significant records again in fiscal Q3,” Mehrotra said in the earnings release. However, memory chip prices have soared amid a shortage in recent months. “We are only able to supply, for our key customers in the midterm, about 50% to two-thirds of their requirements,” Mehrotra told CNBC. Memory prices have skyrocketed in 2026 as companies including Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix redirect production towards high bandwidth memory chips for artificial intelligence data centres. Micron’s revenue per bit from DRAM memory components will rise 54% across 2026 amid high demand and a continuing shortage, Visible Alpha has projected. Micron’s share price has also surged by 270%
Hardware
Chip designer Rebellions raises $400m for US expansion
South Korean chip designer Rebellions has raised US$400 million (A$583.1 million) in a funding round as it ramps up its expansion into the United States, the company said today. Rebellions designs neural processing inference chips to run AI models, and was valued at $2.34 billion during the round. "AI is now measured by its ability to operate in the real world — at scale, under power constraints, and with clear economic return," said Rebellions CEO Sunghyun Park. "That shifts the centre of gravity toward inference infrastructure and software that makes that infrastructure usable.” “Our objective is to build a durable infrastructure company that enables the next phase of AI adoption," Park said. “That requires long-term investment in software, systems, and ecosystem — in addition to hardware — and a clear focus on making AI deployable at scale.” The funding round was led by Mirae Asset Financial Group and the South Korean government’s Korea National Growth Fund. Rebellions has received a total of $850 million in funding, including $650 million in the past six months. Rebellions is preparing for a future initial public offering, it said, though it did not provide details. For its expansion into the U.S., Rebellions
Hardware
Arm reveals first in-house chip, targeting agentic AI
Semiconductor designer Arm has unveiled its first chip to be constructed in-house, with Meta as its co-developer and first customer. The central processing unit chip is intended for artificial intelligence data centres, the company said, and it will support infrastructure for agentic AI. “Today marks the next phase of the Arm compute platform and a defining moment for our company,” said Arm CEO Rene Haas. “With the expansion into delivering production silicon with our Arm AGI CPU, we are giving partners more choices all built on Arm’s foundation of high-performance, power-efficient computing, to support agentic AI infrastructure at global scale.” Meta, which also co-developed the chip, said it would partner with Arm on several generations of new CPUs. The CPU was developed to work alongside Meta’s custom-built AI training chips. The companies did not disclose the deal’s financial terms, but Meta has committed to massively increasing its AI-related spending this year. Other companies including OpenAI, Cloudflare, SAP, and SK Telecom have agreed to deploy Arm’s new CPU. Early chip systems are available now, according to Arm, with wider availability in the second half of 2026. The chip will be manufactured at Tai
Hardware
How the memory chip shortage is spiking phone, PC prices
Prices for many consumer electronic devices, including smartphones and computers, are set to spike this year amid a major shortage of memory chips. These memory components temporarily store data on a device to help it complete tasks like using apps or browsing the internet. Memory prices surged 80-90% in the first month of 2026, a record-breaking spike, according to Counterpoint Research. The shortage has been driven by companies diverting production towards artificial intelligence chips, and is projected to cause massive declines in the smartphone and PC markets. Relief is unlikely until at least 2028, once new factories come online. Why is this shortage happening?Memory prices have skyrocketed so far in 2026, largely due to rising demand for artificial intelligence chips. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron represent around 93% of the market for DRAM memory components, the variety used in consumer electronics. However, these companies are increasingly rerouting memory production to high-bandwidth memory chips, which supply AI data centres and growing AI training demands. Newer AI models require greater amounts of memory storage to train, and AI companies are drastically scaling up their data centre capacity in order to do