AI ignites bullish frenzy, chip stocks rise for nine consecutive days! Philadelphia Semiconductor Index sets longest winning streak since 2017

According to Zhitong Finance APP, as of Tuesday's close of the US stock market, one of the core driving forces behind the current "long-term bull market in US stocks" since 2023—chip stocks—has seen a strong rise. This sector has even achieved the longest continuous upward trend in nearly eight years, with Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US), known as the "king of chip foundries," and Micron Technology (MU.US), a global leader in memory chips, reaching historic highs this week. The chip stocks in the US market have recorded the longest continuous upward period since 2017, driven by the growth wave fueled by artificial intelligence and the frenzy of AI investments.

Looking ahead, based on chip market research reports from authoritative institutions such as Wall Street financial giant Goldman Sachs and the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS), chip stocks are likely to remain one of the most outstanding technology sectors in the US stock market from a long-term investment perspective, driven by this unprecedented global AI investment boom.

Recently, during the passionate performance of the global chip stock "super bull market," especially as semiconductor/chip stocks closely related to AI training/inference systems surged, Goldman Sachs' latest semiconductor industry research report has added fuel to the already hot bullish sentiment on AI. After the institution held the Communacopia + Technology conference covering the world's top semiconductor companies, the Goldman Sachs research team stated that they maintain the judgment of a "structural bull market driven by AI" for the semiconductor industry.

As of Tuesday's close of the US stock market, the benchmark index for US chip stocks—the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which is also viewed by investors as the "global chip stock barometer"—rose only 0.3%. However, this marks the index's ninth consecutive trading day of gains, setting a record for the longest continuous rise since 2017. During these nine trading days, the index has cumulatively risen by 8.7%, with a year-to-date increase of 22%, significantly outperforming the Nasdaq 100 index, which has risen nearly 16% during the same period.

The heat of chip stocks continues to rise—the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has seen the longest continuous rise since 2017.

Among the noteworthy subcomponents of this index, as of Tuesday's close of the US stock market, Amkor Technology (AMKR.US) rose over 5%, ON Semiconductor (ON.US) increased by 3%, Intel (INTC.US) rose by 2%, and Applied Materials (AMAT.US) increased by 1.5%. Although the strongest AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA.US) fell by 1.6%, its year-to-date increase still exceeds 30%. Another popular chip stock, Broadcom (TSM.US), which has repeatedly set historic highs this year, fell by 1.1%, but its increase for 2025 is an astonishing 55% TSMC's stock price hit a historic high on Tuesday. The strong upward trend of TSMC's American Depositary Receipts (ADR) is second only to Broadcom in the performance of U.S. chip stocks this year. In the semiconductor supply chain, TSMC is known as the "eternal god" (YYDS), as both AI GPUs and AI ASICs, which are in high demand, rely heavily on TSMC. With decades of chip manufacturing technology accumulation and being at the forefront of chip manufacturing technology improvement and innovation globally, TSMC has long dominated the vast majority of global chip foundry orders, especially for the most advanced 5nm and below chip foundry orders, thanks to its advanced processes and packaging technology, as well as ultra-high yield.

The stock price of U.S.-based memory chip giant Micron (MU.US) has surged since September, benefiting from the booming demand for core memory chips closely related to AI training/inference systems, the explosive growth in HBM memory system demand, and a wave of price increases for a series of data center-type memory chip products, including enterprise SSDs and DDR series. Micron's stock price has risen by as much as 35% since September and reached a historic high this Monday. Wall Street financial giant Citigroup reaffirmed its "buy" rating for Micron Technology and raised its target price from $140 to $175. Another financial giant, Mizuho, significantly raised Micron's target stock price from $155 to $182.

"The 'AI faith' is sweeping the market, and the chip stock bull market is far from over?"

"What we see in AI infrastructure construction and the entire technology sector can almost be said to be driven by semiconductor-related stocks," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at Phoenix Financial Services. He added that Oracle's recent strong earnings report and the over $10 billion AI infrastructure deal between Microsoft and Nebius Group NV are both positive signals for the global chip sector.

"Companies are placing very long-term AI infrastructure orders, indicating that they feel they might be falling far behind in meeting the computational infrastructure needs of AI," Kaufman stated in an interview. "This suggests that the upward trend in semiconductors/chips looks very sustainable, even if some stocks may be overbought in the short term, giants like NVIDIA and TSMC will still be the biggest winners."

Since 2025, chip stocks closely related to AI computational infrastructure have been one of the most stable winners in the global market. According to data compiled by institutions, NVIDIA, Broadcom, TSMC, and Micron Technology have contributed over 65% to the increase in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index this year.

Undoubtedly, the global cloud computing giant Oracle, which recently announced a contract reserve of $455 billion that far exceeded market expectations, and Broadcom, the global AI ASIC chip "superpower," which announced strong performance and future outlook last week, have significantly reinforced the "long-term bull market narrative" for AI GPU, ASIC, and HBM in the AI computational infrastructure sector. The AI computational demand driven by generative AI applications and AI agents at the inference end is akin to "stars and the sea," expected to drive the AI computational infrastructure market to continue showing exponential growth. The "AI inference system" is also considered by Jensen Huang to be the largest source of future revenue for Nvidia.**

The ongoing explosive growth in global AI computing power demand, coupled with the increasingly large AI infrastructure investment projects led by the U.S. government, and the continuous massive investments by global tech giants in building large data centers, largely indicates that for long-term investors who are fond of Nvidia and the AI computing power industry chain, the sweeping global "AI faith" has not yet concluded its "super catalysis" on the stock prices of computing power leaders. They bet that the stock prices of companies in the AI computing power industry chain led by Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom will continue to exhibit a "bull market curve," thereby driving the global stock market to continue its bull market trend.

Latest Outlook for the Semiconductor Industry: AI-Driven Growth Remains Strong

Goldman Sachs stated that the overall sentiment towards semiconductor companies focused on AI computing power infrastructure is very optimistic, and the proportion of AI-related revenue is expected to continue to rise significantly in the next two years. Enterprise-level AI workloads will be increasingly supported by more large-scale "merchant solutions." There remains room for inventory and weak demand digestion in non-AI-related fields, and Goldman Sachs has pointed out that this segment will impact the short-term volatility of the semiconductor sector.

For example, at the Communacopia + Technology conference, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan predicted that the company's AI-related revenue is expected to exceed the total revenue from software and non-AI businesses in the next two years. At the same time, Broadcom's management has set a target for AI revenue to reach as high as $120 billion by fiscal year 2030, directly linking it to CEO compensation. According to Goldman Sachs' research report, this latest outlook figure represents a fivefold increase compared to the institution's forecast of $20 billion in AI revenue for Broadcom in fiscal year 2025, highlighting management's extreme confidence in AI ASIC chip revenue generation.

Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials, stated at the same conference that HBM and advanced packaging manufacturing equipment will be strong growth vectors in the medium to long term, while new chip manufacturing node equipment such as GAA (Gate-All-Around)/Back Power Delivery (BPD) will be the core driving force behind the company's next round of strong growth. Especially in advanced packaging manufacturing equipment, Dickerson noted that the revenue doubling path for this business line is still on track, with significant increments about to be realized, and the market share in the HBM equipment sector continues to expand, increasingly related to DRAM etching innovations.

According to Wall Street investment giants Loop Capital and Wedbush, the global artificial intelligence infrastructure investment wave centered on AI computing hardware is far from over and is only at the beginning. Driven by an unprecedented "AI computing power demand storm," this round of AI investment wave is expected to reach a scale of $2 trillion. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang even predicted that by 2030, AI infrastructure spending will reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion, and the scale and scope of these projects will bring significant long-term growth opportunities for Nvidia. It is precisely under the epic stock price surge of leaders in the AI computing power industry chain such as NVIDIA, Google, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Broadcom, along with their continuously strong performance this year, that an unprecedented AI investment boom has swept through the U.S. stock market and global stock markets, driving the global benchmark index—MSCI Global Index—into a significant upward trend since April, recently setting new historical highs.

The latest semiconductor industry outlook released by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) indicates that global chip demand recovery is expected to continue from 2025 to 2026, and the analog chips, which have seen weak demand since the end of 2022, are anticipated to soon enter a strong recovery curve.

WSTS predicts that after a strong rebound in 2024, the global semiconductor market will grow by 11.2% in 2025, reaching a total value of $700.9 billion, primarily driven by the sustained strong momentum in the GPU-dominated logic chip sector and the HBM-dominated memory sector, both of which are expected to achieve robust double-digit growth due to the ongoing strong demand in areas such as AI inference systems, cloud computing infrastructure, and cutting-edge consumer electronics.

WSTS forecasts that the global semiconductor market will grow by 8.5% to $760.7 billion by 2026, building on the strong recovery in 2025, with memory chips expected to lead the growth again, while logic and analog chips will also make significant contributions, and analog chips are likely to enter a strong recovery cycle.