TSMC (2330) benefited from two strong growth drivers this quarter: the upgrade of NVIDIA's latest GB300 AI chips and the inventory cycle of Apple's iPhone 17 series.Institutional investors' USD revenue to TSMC will once again reach record highs, possibly staying above $30 billion, while quarter-quarter growth is expected to be 3% to 7%.TSMC's U.S. dollar revenue is expected to exceed a $100 billion milestone for the first time in 2025, setting a new record.
TSMC plans to hold its earnings call this Thursday (July 17), during which it will announce financial results for the previous quarter and first half of the year, as well as the outlook for the current quarter.The company is currently in a quiet period before the call.Analysts believe that the keen appreciation of the new Taiwan dollar may weaken the surprise factor of TSMC earnings, with gross margins and operating margins likely approaching the lower end of the guidance.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, analysts pointed out that the GB300 will enter mass production and become the main driving force for the growth of TSMC's high-performance computing (HPC) business.With NVIDIA's next-generation AI chip platform Rubin expected to be launched in 2026, this will be a key factor in keeping the TSMC 3NM home capabilities fully utilized.
GB300 plays a crucial role in advancing AI inference performance and supporting generation, proxying AI and embodying applications in AI.
According to the source of the supply chain, the enhanced performance of the GB300 makes it a major highlight in the AI sector in the second half of the year.TSMC is responsible for manufacturing this "world's most powerful AI chip" and foundries are actively pursuing the booming AI server assembly market.Foxconn has the largest share of orders and is the biggest winner, with Quanta, Wistron, Wiwynn and Inventec also strengthening their shipments.
How powerful is the GB300?According to data released by NVIDIA, the chip (still made by TSMC) can be extended to a top-level GB300 NVL72 configuration that connects 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs based on ARM Neoverse. Its AI performance is 1.5 times that of the GB200 NVL72.Blackwell has increased revenue opportunities in the AI factory market by 50 times compared to previous hopper-based products.
In addition, the launch of Apple's iPhone 17 series will further drive the demand for advanced process nodes for TSMC.Supply chain estimates indicate that flagship iPhone shipments will increase year-on-year this year.
As Apple upgrades its AI capabilities, the silicon content of each device grows faster than shipments.The inventory cycle of the iPhone 17 is expected to remain the largest media in the TSMC 3NM series, and Apple is expected to remain the first customer of TSMC's upcoming 2NM nodes, continuing to support TSMC's advanced node orders.