Texas Instruments shares jump as first-quarter outlook signals robust AI data center demand

Jan 28 (Reuters) - Texas Instruments' shares gained 7% successful premarket trading connected Wednesday aft its rosy quarterly forecast showed the AI information halfway ​boom was driving request for chips beyond Nvidia's precocious processors.

TI connected Tuesday ‌forecast first-quarter nett and gross supra estimates, powered by beardown analog sales, particularly successful information center.

TI makes ‌analog chips for converting signals and managing powerfulness successful information centers, dissimilar Nvidia's fast, high-priced AI graphics chips, and has benefited from a surge successful request from tech companies ramping up compute infrastructure to powerfulness their AI ambitions.

Data halfway whitethorn assistance enactment ⁠growth into 2026, Bernstein analysts ‌said.

But capex concerns stay a imaginable headwind, immoderate analysts said.

"TI volition enactment successful the upturn; that should beryllium comparatively uncontroversial," Morgan ‍Stanley analysts said successful a note.

"But 5 years of superior spending has brought instrumentality connected equity down substantially, arsenic equity has grown astir 70% successful 5 years, with property, plant, ​and instrumentality (PP&E) up 4 times implicit that clip frame," portion nett income has ‌stayed astir the aforesaid from 1 rhythm to the next, Morgan Stanley added.

A planetary shortage of representation chips has besides formed a shadiness implicit end-market request successful the idiosyncratic electronics space, with researchers expecting income of smartphones and idiosyncratic computers - a cardinal marketplace for TI - to beryllium impacted.

But a proviso shortage for TI was ⁠unlikely owed to debased mill utilization worldwide, though ​geopolitical risks stay unpredictable and U.S.-focused accumulation could ​expose TI to tariffs abroad, Morgan Stanley added.

For the archetypal quarter, TI expects gross betwixt $4.32 cardinal and $4.68 billion, supra the $4.42 cardinal estimated ‍by LSEG.

"We request different ⁠consecutive 4th of maturation to summation assurance successful sustainability, accordant with CEO Haviv Ilan's remark that 'we'll person to spot however it plays out'," Morgan Stanley ⁠noted.

The banal mislaid 7.5% of its worth successful 2025, giving it a 12-month guardant price-to-earnings ratio ‌of 30.95, compared with 29.50 for rival Analog Devices.

(Reporting by Akriti ‌Shah successful Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)