The Semiconductor Boom is still Strong and Long 🚀
AMD Earnings, Nvidia Earnings, TSMC news. Supply chain constraints just to meet datacenter expansionism. Picks and shovels in the back of the AI boom.
Good Morning,
This is going to be a long one. As I wanted to include Nvidia Earnings tidbits.
Let’s get you caught up on some of the East Asia centric Semiconductor News. The tremor of the AI bubble before Nvidia earnings has hit, and we await the Gods with bated breath. This is an AI boom and it’s 2025, a vision where Nvidia could hit $6 Trillion next year in market cap feels like a dream. 🌈
A Dream where Qualcomm will make its own AI Chip, Qualcomm said that both the AI200, which will go on sale in 2026, and the AI250, planned for 2027, can come in a system that fills up a full, liquid-cooled server rack. Arm unveiled plans to acquire AI networking chipmaker DreamBig Semiconductor for US$265 million and what of its AI chip plans? Softank sold all of its shares in Nvidia to fuel one of the biggest customers of Nvidia. It’s all so particular to the elevated context of Tech Optimism we find ourselves in. Suddenly the Semiconductor and AI chip industry is interesting, beyond interesting.
TSMC, the main chipmaker to AI leader Nvidia Corp., posted a 16.9% rise in sales for October, the slowest pace since February 2024. But can we read too much into it? Predicated by the likes of
(I remember, at least). Substrate coming out of stealth and making bold claims was even more surprising with a fair bit of skepticism. If you were groomed by Peter Thiel, my default is skeptical. There’s a creepy side to all of this. Maybe Vikram Sekar would know if it’s feasible:
How Feasible is Substrate really?
When do shareholders in U.S. Capitalism not view huge increases in AI capex without ROI as a great signals for the future? Is the response to Meta’s Q3 2025 Earnings honestly the first sign of this? The AI capex that is the dominant trend of the 2020s. Part of the vision that fuels the dream? Don’t tell me you’re going to disrupt ASML or TSMC or both, I’m not having it. But to meet capacity, I would do anything. Meta, Amazon and now even Anthropic are. Mind the stairs on your way up Anthropic who are making $50 Billion AI Infrastructure plans.
As Neo Clouds correct on the stock market after going up over 200% in most cases, when will the bubble hit the road? Not for a few more years they say. Anthropic serves more than 300,000 business customers, and our number of large accounts—customers that each represent over $100,000 in run-rate revenue—has grown nearly sevenfold in the past year. I estimate they will overtake OpenAI in ARR by early 2027.
AMD Pitches Super Powers and Hyper Growth Ahead ⚡
AMD’s deal with OpenAI might be rocket fuel for the Nvidia competitor in AI chips and Intel competitors stealing their marketshare. Advanced Micro Devices reported fiscal third-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations and Lisa Su sounds like she knows what she’s down (another Taiwanese-American).
The AMD CEO predicts the company will capture double-digit share of the data center AI market within three to five years.
AMD expects its data center business to grow 80% annually and reach $1T in revenue by 2030.
Music to the ears of Shareholders no doubt. But revenue increased (just) 36% from a year earlier in the fiscal third quarter, which ended on Sept. 27. The stock AMD is up nearly 116% so far in 2025 alone. For the fourth quarter, AMD expects about $9.6 billion in revenue, implying 25% growth. At least they got the PR right this time. 🤷♂️
The bubble days of AI in the 2020s continues. 🥂
Nvidia Earnings
Nvidia did not let us down beating expectations for the 13th straight quarter.
The demand for compute is insatiable heading into 2026. We are entering the age of Inference.
Nvidia recorded revenue of $57.0 billion, up 22% from Q2 and 62% from a year ago.
With Data Center revenue of $51.2 billion, up 25% from Q2 and 66% from a year ago.
Nvidia is forecasting about $65 billion in sales for the (Q4) fourth quarter, higher than what Wall Street was estimating.
The AI boom can’t become an AI bubble with the demand for Nvidia’s GPUs this strong.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” he said on the company’s earnings call. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”
What’s in a Picture: IBM Quantum Loon and IBM Quantum Nighthawk
More on that in my Quantum Newsletter soon.
🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Semiconductor Things™ to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.