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By Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard TAIPEI (Reuters) -TSMC, the world's biggest producer of advanced chips, raised its full-year revenue forecast on Thursday on a bullish outlook for spending on artificial intelligence, after posting a record profit that blew past market estimates. The strong results underscore the continued faith in AI, brushing off at least for now concerns about a bubble. U.S.-listed shares of the Taiwanese chipmaker were up 1.6% in pre-market trade in New York and boosted U.S. semiconductor stocks, including AI leader Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. TSMC said it expects robust artificial intelligence demand to continue, as it raised its 2025 revenue guidance to mid-30% growth in U.S. dollar terms from around 30%, and maintained its forecast for capital spending at up to $42 billion for 2025. "AI demand actually continues to be very strong – more strong than we thought three months ago," CEO C.C. Wei told an earnings call. "We are also happy to see a continuous strong outlook from our customers," he added. "In addition, we directly receive very strong signals from our customers requesting the capacity to support their business. Thus, our conviction in the AI megatrend is strengthening." There has been a flurry of mega deals between AI firms and chipmakers, notably by OpenAI with Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom, in the past month or so to build $1 trillion or more in data center capacity. That portends more demand for chips, which make up a significant portion of the cost of the data centers. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom all rely on TSMC for chip production. The multi-billion dollar investment announcements have raised concerns about the formation of a bubble reminiscent of the dotcom boom and bust, with securities investors on guard for signals that demand is tailing off or that the massive spending is not paying off as anticipated. Recent company announcements indicate demand is resilient. The head of Australia's Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), which sold its Aligned Data Centers business in a deal worth $40 billion, said on Thursday the sale was not a sign the global data center boom had peaked, while ABB's big increase in orders in the United States during the third quarter was due to demand from areas like data centers being built for AI. PROFIT BEATS ESTIMATES Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, whose customers also include iPhone maker Apple, posted a 39.1% jump in third-quarter net profit and said it would be prudent in its business planning going into 2026. Benefiting from surging demand for advanced chips used in AI applications, TSMC said net profit for July-September climbed to T$452.3 billion ($14.76 billion). That was well ahead of a T$417.7 billion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts. SmartEstimates are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate. "We are still very comfortable that the demand on leading-edge semiconductors is real. And as I continue to say that we look at all the demand and look at our capacity expansion, TSMC needs to work very hard to narrow the gap," Wei said, referring to supply and demand. U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies and threats to put tariffs on semiconductors have created uncertainty for the global chip industry and TSMC. Still, Wei said even if the China market was "not available" to the company because of U.S. restrictions, then "I still think the AI's growth will be very dramatic". TSMC announced plans for a $100 billion U.S. investment with Trump at the White House in March, on top of $65 billion pledged for three plants in the state of Arizona, one of which is up and running. On Wednesday, top semiconductor equipment maker ASML, for which TSMC is a major customer, said third-quarter bookings beat market forecasts but that it expected a significant fall in demand from China next year. Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday it expected its biggest quarterly profit in over three years, also thanks to the AI boom. Taiwan-listed shares in TSMC have risen 38% this year, largely brushing off concerns about tariffs, and ahead of the 20% rise for the broader market. ($1 = 30.6450 Taiwan dollars) (Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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(Reuters) -Salesforce shares jumped more than 6% in premarket trading on Thursday, after the company forecast faster revenue growth in the coming years, easing concerns that AI tools were eroding demand for its software. The Marc Benioff-led company had posted its first revenue decline in about three years earlier this year, sparking fears that businesses focused on AI investments were cutting back on what has long been essential customer management software. That had knocked its stock by more than a quarter in 2025 so far. But the company's better-than-expected forecast of more than $60 billion revenue in 2030 allayed some of those fears. That forecast, unveiled at the company's Dreamforce event on Wednesday, excluded the boost from its planned $8 billion acquisition of software-maker Informatica. The deal, set to complete by the first half of next year, will bolster Salesforce's AI capabilities by integrating Informatica's data management tools into its cloud services. Salesforce also announced a $7 billion share buyback plan over the next six months, a move J.P.Morgan analysts said reflects "confidence in free cash flow durability and the near-term re-acceleration in bookings and eventually revenue". The new outlook "should help shift the narrative around Salesforce's business positively and toward the notion of sustainable double-digit growth", potentially easing investor concerns, analysts at J.P.Morgan said. Earlier this week, Salesforce expanded partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic to embed their advanced AI models into its Agentforce 360 platform, which has now been launched globally across its suite of cloud-based tools. The company has also said it would invest $15 billion in San Francisco over the next five years to accelerate AI adoption. Salesforce's "healthy pace of margin expansion" could bring it in line with large-cap peers by the end of the decade, Jefferies analysts said. (Reporting by Rashika Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

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ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey's 5G spectrum tender drew a total of $2.95 billion in winning bids on Thursday, with the country's major operators Turkcell, Vodafone and Turk Telekom securing key blocks across the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz frequency ranges. Turkcell placed the highest bid of $429 million for the A1 package in the 700 MHz band and won four blocks in the 3.5 GHz range. Its winning bids totalled $1.22 billion. Turk Telekom secured the A3 package for $425 million and two blocks in the 3.5 GHz range. Its winning bids amounted to $1.1 billion. Vodafone won the A2 package for $426 million and won a single 3.5 GHz block. Its winning bids totalled $627 million. The rollout of 5G services is expected to start in April next year, primarily in major cities. The tender distributed not only 5G frequencies but also extended the usage rights of previous-generation network frequencies until the end of 2042. Turk Telekom, Turkcell and Vodafone were participating in the tender for 5G frequencies with the minimum fee for all packages set at $2.13 billion, excluding VAT. The tender was selling frequencies in the 700 MHz band in three blocks and in the 3.5 GHz band in eight blocks. The operators did not release estimates on network investment ahead of the tender, but analysts expect them to embark on a multi-year, multi-billion dollar process to upgrade their networks to 5G. The previous mobile frequency auction before 5G was held in 2015. Three operators paid 4 billion euros ($4.66 billion), including VAT, for the 4.5G for approximately 15 years. Thursday’s tender also extended the authorisation period for 2G and 3G services, which were to expire in 2029, until the end of 2042. Companies will pay 5% of their annual sales from these services to the Treasury. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Wednesday that the first 5G signal will be launched on April 1 and that it will gradually expand nationwide, starting with densely populated cities. He said it could take a little over a year for coverage to expand nationwide. ($1 = 0.8581 euros) (Reporting by Can Sezer; Writing by Daren Butler and Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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