Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has announced a forecast-busting quarterly profit amid surging demand for chips used to power artificial intelligence. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, reported a net profit of 352.3 billion Taiwanese dollars ( 10.1bn) for the third quarter, up 54.2 percent from the same period last year. The figure marked the firm's best-ever quarterly performance and was comfortably ahead of market estimates. TSMC said revenues hit 23.5bn, up 36 percent on-year, and that full-year revenue was forecast to grow nearly 30 percent. "Our business in the third quarter was supported by strong smartphone and AI-related demand for our industry-leading three nanometre and five nanometre technologies," TSMC chairman CC Wei said in a briefing to analysts.