Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday reported a 54% rise in third-quarter net profit and forecast annual sales growth in the final three months of the year as global chipmakers continue to benefit from demand boosted by AI applications.

The company’s net profit was 325.3 billion Taiwan dollars ($10.1 billion) for the July-September quarter, surpassing the LSEG estimate of $300.2 billion Taiwan dollars cited by Reuters.

U.S.-listed shares rose 9.3% as of 8:32 a.m. (ET) in premarket trading.

TSMC is the world’s largest producer of advanced chips, serving customers like Apple And Nvidia.

Net sales reached $23.5 billion in the third quarter, up 36% year-over-year, with TSMC’s gross margin rising to 57.8% in July-September, compared to 54.3% in the same period. last year.

“Based on current business guidance, we expect our fourth quarter revenue to be between $26.1 billion and $26.9 billion, representing a 13% sequential increase or a 35% year-over-year increase at midpoint ,” says TSMC Chief Financial. Agent Wendell Huang said during an earnings call after the results were announced, according to a transcript of the call produced by FactSet.

In the third quarter, “our business was supported by strong smartphone and AI-related demand for our leading 3nm and 5nm technologies,” TSMC said in a statement, referring to its semiconductor nodes.

In Thursday’s earnings call, CC Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, emphasized that the demand for AI is “real” and that as a result the company has experienced the “deepest and broadest growth of anyone in this industry.”

“We’ve been talking to our customers all the time, including our hyperscaler customers who build their own chips. And almost every AI innovator is working with TSMC,” he said.

The company’s Taipei-listed shares are up nearly 80% this year, surpassing the stock market’s 28.57% gain. broader market during the same period.

TSMC now expects capital expenditures for this year to rise to just over $30 billion, it said on its earnings call. The company’s capital expenditures rose to $6.4 billion in the third quarter, compared to $6.36 billion in the previous three months.

The Taiwanese chipmaker, whose advanced chips are essential to a range of products ranging from smartphones to AI applications, has expanded its manufacturing presence globally and made a massive $65 billion foreign investment in three chip factories in Arizona to meet US demand to fulfil. and opened its first factory in Japan earlier this year.

TSMC’s profit figures come in the same week as those of the Dutch company ASMLwhich supplies machinery to the Taiwanese company, posted lower-than-expected net sales, sending shares tumbling.

Some market participants have questioned the long-term resilience of the AI ​​boom and the returns on increasing investments in the technology sector – with Young Liu, CEO and chairman of major Apple supplier Foxconn, telling CNBC last week that the AI frenzy “still some time to go”, as advanced language models evolve with each new iteration.

Correction: This article has been updated to accurately reflect that TSMC’s third-quarter net income was Taiwan dollars 325.3 billion.