– Production bookings increased by 74% in Q1.
– The company focuses on custom AI chip design.
– Demand is growing across various applications, not just data centers.
– Investors are diversifying their exposure in the AI supply chain.
▸ Full transcript
Semifive, for its part, reported a 137% year-over-year surge in revenue in its first earnings release since listing on the COSDAQ in December last year. The Seoul-based company says AI demand has driven production bookings up 74% in the first quarter alone. Semifive's partners include Samsung Foundry. For more on the outlook, we joined exclusively by the co-founder and CEO, Brandon Show. Brandon, it's really great to have you with us, and I wanted to get a view as to how life has been since the listing. Obviously, still loss-making, and everyone wants to know when that's going to turn to profit. Yes, first of all, thank you for having us. As you said, we are making a lot of achievements in the market, and the panel just discussed the broadening of the AI silicon ecosystem, and Semifive is leading the way. So just to give you a brief introduction of what we are doing, we are an ASIC family, or as we call it, a design foundry, so we design custom chips for our customers and then supply those developed chips to the customer on a per-unit basis. The interest in the custom AI chips is really surging, and as you mentioned, as we went public last year, we are seeing even faster-growing demand from all regions and all applications, not just within the data center application but also in the own device and smaller server and edge-type web servers. So yes, we are seeing a lot of growth.
Analysis
Semifive reported a 137% year-over-year surge in revenue, driven by strong AI demand, with production bookings up 74% in Q1. The company, which designs custom chips, is experiencing rapid growth across various applications, indicating a robust expansion in the AI silicon ecosystem.
Investors should note that while Semifive is still loss-making, the increasing interest in custom AI chips suggests a significant shift in demand dynamics. This trend highlights the potential for broader exposure across the AI supply chain, as companies seek to diversify their investments beyond traditional leaders like TSMC.