ASML Holding NV reported stronger-than-expected bookings on Wednesday as the world's largest supplier of computer chip equipment received larger orders thanks to larger investments in artificial-intelligence chipmaking capacity.

Fourth-quarter bookings, the most watched metric in the industry, were 13.2 billion euros ($15.83 billion), compared with 5.4 billion euros in the previous quarter, against market analyst expectations of 6.32 billion euros according to researcher Visible Alpha.

ASML shares surged 8% in overnight trading.

"In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand" ASML's Chief executive Christophe Fouquet said in a statement.

The orders beat comes as several of ASML's chipmaker customers raise investment plans amid surging demand for AI logic and memory chips needed by cloud computing giants such as Microsoft MSFT.O, Amazon AMZN.O and Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O.

($1 = 0.8339 euros)