Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s sales growth decelerated from the December quarter as Nvidia’s main chipmaker grapples with industry-wide questions surrounding AI spending.

Revenue in January grew 36 percent to NT$293.3 billion (HK$69.42 billion), compared to a 38.8 percent increase in the October-December period. Analysts on average are looking for a 41 percent increase in sales from the go-to chipmaker for Nvidia and Apple Inc. in the current quarter through March.

Deciphering Taiwanese companies’ sales during the first months of the year is complicated by the multi-day Lunar New Year holiday, which can fall on either January or February.

Major tech companies including Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms have all announced plans to invest tens of billions of dollars this year in AI and appeared unfazed by the success of the seemingly lower-cost models from Chinese startup DeepSeek. Amazon.com alone is aiming to spend US$100 billion (HK$780 billion) on AI.