Broadcom, Marvell and TSMC cash in as Big Tech builds custom AI chips

The biggest names in tech have decided that buying AI chips off the shelf isn’t enough. Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Apple are pouring more money into custom silicon built around their own workloads. The winners so far aren’t necessarily the companies whose logos go on the chips. Broadcom, Marvell Technology and TSMC are the ones doing the design work and the manufacturing, and the numbers show it. The picks-and-shovels trade, silicon edition The chips in question are application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs. Unlike general-purpose graphics processors, an ASIC is built for one job. A company that runs the same kind of AI task billions of times can get a chip tuned precisely for that task. Broadcom is the dominant player here. It holds a 60-70% share of the custom AI ASIC design services market as of October 2026. Its financials match that position. Reported AI semiconductor revenue hit $16.7 billion in fiscal Q3 2026, up 221% year over year. The pipeline looks just as full. Broadcom carries an estimated backlog of ~$73 billion in AI-related contracts as of October 2026. Marvell plays a strong second fiddle The company expects its custom business ...