TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. posted its sixth consecutive record quarterly profit on Thursday, as the world's largest contract chipmaker again rode a surge in orders for the processors powering the artificial intelligence boom.

TSMC, which fabricates chips for Nvidia, Apple, AMD and nearly every other major fabless chip designer, reported third-quarter net income of NT$763.06 billion (roughly $23.6 billion), up 68.7% from a year earlier and ahead of the NT$746.3 billion analysts polled by LSEG had expected, according to the company's results reported by CNBC. Revenue climbed to NT$1.49 trillion, or about $46.7 billion, up roughly 50% in local-currency terms from a year ago and above the high end of TSMC's own July guidance.

Margins hold up despite advanced-node ramp

Diluted earnings per share came to NT$29.43, equivalent to about $4.60 per American depositary receipt, according to the earnings statement TSMC filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Gross margin came in at 66.4% and operating margin at 58.7% — both comfortably inside the range TSMC had guided to in July, despite warnings earlier this year that ramping its newer 2-nanometer process would weigh on profitability. High-performance computing chips, the category that includes AI accelerators, made up 68% of quarterly revenue, the filing shows.

For the current quarter, TSMC guided to revenue of $52.3 billion to $54.3 billion, which would mark another sequential jump, with gross margin projected at 65% to 67%. Coverage of the earnings cited company commentary describing advanced-node capacity as effectively sold out through the rest of 2026, with major customers already booking production slots into 2027, per a report from TechBuzz that also noted TSMC kept expanding capacity through the recent industry downturn while rival foundries pulled back spending.

The results land in the middle of an earnings season that has already delivered a string of AI-fueled blowout numbers from chip-adjacent companies, intensifying a running debate on Wall Street over whether spending on AI infrastructure is sustainable or has outrun near-term demand. TSMC's own run of six straight record quarters — each one beating the forecasts that came before it — has so far undercut the bear case, at least on the supply side of the AI buildout.

Analysts had flagged labor shortages at TSMC's overseas expansion sites, including its Arizona fabs, as a potential constraint on how fast the company can convert its order backlog into shipped chips. TSMC has not disclosed updated 2026 capital-expenditure figures in Thursday's release, after guiding earlier in the year to spending of roughly $60 billion to $64 billion.

Markets will get a fuller read on how investors are weighing the results, including any reaction in TSMC's Taipei-listed shares and its U.S.-listed ADRs, as trading resumes in Asia and New York later Thursday. The company's results are also likely to factor into guidance expectations from other chip suppliers reporting in the coming weeks.