MW These stocks are the biggest winners as TSMC earnings supercharge the AI trade

By Jules Rimmer and Emily Bary

Taiwan Semiconductor is making a lot of money - and spending heavily within the AI ecosystem

TSMC detailed plans to accelerate the building of new plants in Taiwan and the U.S.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's earnings are breathing new life into the artificial-intelligence trade on Thursday, highlighting both robust demand and aggressive plans to spend across the ecosystem.

While TSMC's U.S.-listed shares $(TSM)$ are up 6.6% in morning trading Thursday, some stocks are up even more. The four biggest gainers in the S&P 500 SPX are chip-equipment players or memory and storage providers: KLA $(KLAC)$ (up 8.9%, Sandisk $(SNDK)$ (up 8.3%), Applied Materials (AMAT) (up 8%) and Western Digital $(WDC)$ (up 7.1%).

See also: This could be a better - and safer - way into the AI trade in 2026

That's as TSMC's management rolled out big spending targets. Analysts previously expected the company's capital expenditures to be about $40 billion to $50 billion for this year, but the company's guidance is now in the range of $52 billion to $56 billion. The company is investing in a new Arizona facility and building out fabrication plants in Taiwan.

"TSMC is typically cautious on capacity given the chip industry's boom and bust cycles so this aggressive build-out suggests they see a durable runway for AI demand stretching well into the next decade," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

ING analyst Marc Hesselink also observed that "aggressive investment reflects sustained AI-driven demand and tight supply conditions." Hesselink noted that capex commentary would be very positive for suppliers to TSMC, such as ASML (NL:ASML), BESI (NL:BESI) and ASM International (NL:ASM). The read-across for the likes of Nvidia (NVDA) and AAPL $(AAPL)$, who buy many of TSMC's high-performance chips, is also positive, added Britzman.

Read: Amazon's stock could face this sneaky AI risk

Viewed by many as a bellwether for the ongoing AI bonanza, as it provides 90% of the world's most advanced chips, TSMC is comfortably the largest stock in Asia, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.4 trillion. It's also the biggest component of the MSCI Emerging Markets index EEM, with a weighting of almost 12%.

Other highlights in the quarter included that revenue exceeded the NT$1 trillion mark ($33.1 billion).

"The world's largest chipmaker just sent a clear message: the AI boom is nowhere near done," Britzman said. He called the results "a roadmap for where the next leg of AI investment is headed."

CFO Wendell Huang also upped TSMC's guidance on operating margins, now calling for 54% to 56%, versus 52% beforehand. Revenue growth is expected to reach 30% in 2026, again in advance of the 25% analysts were anticipating.

"Margin expansion continued this quarter and management's guidance suggested that TSM was not impacted by rising memory prices," Ryan Lee, the senior vice president of product and strategy at Direxion, said in emailed comments. "Given sales figures were known coming into the report, this margin expansion was a major factor to help drive the name higher."

Don't miss: These under-the-radar stocks combine fast growth with big upside potential

-Jules Rimmer -Emily Bary

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January 15, 2026 12:04 ET (17:04 GMT)

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