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.