TSMC Posts Strong Start To 2025 With 39% Revenue Surge In 2 Months, Retail Cheers Despite Trump Tariff Worries

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) posted a 39% surge in revenue during the first two months of 2025 in signs that the demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips remains resilient despite recent macroeconomic uncertainties.

TSMC posted a total revenue of NT$553.3 billion ($16.8 billion) for January and February, surging from NT$397.4 billion ($12.06 billion) during the same period a year earlier.

TSMC manufactures chips for some of the world’s biggest companies, including Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), among others.

The surge in TSMC’s sales comes at a time when China’s DeepSeek AI model has threatened to dethrone its top rivals in the West, including OpenAI, Claude, Meta’s Llama, among others. 

DeepSeek’s efficiency gains also sparked concerns that Nvidia’s top-end AI GPUs are not as necessary as initially thought.

Trump’s tariff threats and restrictions on chip exports to countries like China have also clouded the overall sentiment in the semiconductor industry.

At the same time, Microsoft Corp., the largest OpenAI investor, has reportedly canceled multiple data center leases as it reevaluates AI demand. This comes after the company committed to $80 billion in AI data center investments through fiscal year 2025.

However, TSMC’s robust performance during January and February should come across as a sign of relief for AI bulls.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around the TSMC stock reflected this positivity, with investors being ‘extremely bullish’ (76/100) on the company’s prospects.

One user thinks that there is no doubt about the AI demand post TSMC’s report.

Another user thinks that TSMC is the stock to buy.

TSMC’s stock has declined over 13% year-to-date, but over the past year, it has gained over 21%.

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