AI Demand Drove Top Fabless Chipmakers to $141.45 Billion in Q2 2026

TrendForce’s fabless-chip ranking, published September 11, found that the world’s 10 largest fabless IC design companies generated more than $141.45 billion in combined revenue in the second quarter of 2026. That was a 73% increase from a year earlier, powered by expanding AI demand across compute, custom silicon and networking. 1

AI infrastructure was the common growth engine

The report ties the surge to demand for GPUs, CPUs, ASICs and interconnect products used in AI systems. The result was a market led by companies supplying data-center compute and the networks that connect it, rather than by the more consumer-dependent parts of the chip industry. 1

That distinction matters: AI investment supported not only accelerator chips, but also server CPUs, purpose-built customer silicon, high-speed optical and electrical connections, and power-management components.

NVIDIA dominated the revenue pool

NVIDIA remained the clear leader, reporting roughly $91.16 billion in Q2 revenue, up 99% year over year. TrendForce said that represented about 64% of the combined revenue of the top 10 companies. Hyperscalers were still central customers, while neo-cloud providers, sovereign-AI projects and enterprise buyers also contributed. 1

TrendForce also highlighted NVIDIA’s effort to broaden its position around custom AI systems through its NVLink Fusion ecosystem. The firm cited NVIDIA’s investment in MediaTek to help custom-XPU customers work with NVIDIA infrastructure and support future automotive-AI positioning, as well as NVLink Fusion cooperation associated with NVIDIA’s Marvell investment. 1

Broadcom’s custom-ASIC business accelerated

Broadcom held second place with revenue above $18.89 billion, up 112% year over year. TrendForce attributed the momentum to shipments of the first OpenAI ASIC that Broadcom helped design and Google’s TPU 8i, alongside networking growth tied to XPU deployments. It identified six custom-chip customers, including Anthropic and OpenAI. 1

The takeaway is that AI spending was not confined to merchant GPUs. Customers developing their own accelerators also created demand for chip-design partners and the high-performance networking needed to deploy those systems at scale.

AMD rose to third as server CPUs gained importance

AMD moved ahead of Qualcomm into third place, with revenue exceeding $11.53 billion. TrendForce linked its advance to the growing strategic role of server CPUs in agentic-AI workloads. AMD’s data-center CPU revenue set a fifth consecutive quarterly record, supported by continued gains against Intel in x86 servers, according to the report. 1

Qualcomm slipped to fourth despite revenue above $8.5 billion. Weak handset-chip demand and a lower share of the newest iPhone modem weighed on its results, though automotive revenue continued its run of double-digit year-over-year growth. TrendForce also noted Qualcomm’s effort to diversify its QCT business through a return to data-center products. 1

Consumer exposure remained a constraint

The ranking also showed the unevenness of the recovery. MediaTek, whose business has substantial handset exposure, placed fifth with roughly $4.81 billion in revenue. TrendForce said the company was responding by raising its AI-ASIC outlook, projecting more than $2 billion in data-center revenue in 2026 and estimating an $80 billion ASIC serviceable market by 2028. 1

Other companies were pursuing adjacent data-center opportunities:

• Marvell, sixth with $2.63 billion, benefited from demand for 800G PAM4 DSPs and growing 1.6T shipments. TrendForce also cited a Google custom-business agreement expected to contribute materially in fiscal 2029. 1
• Realtek, seventh at nearly $1.19 billion, expected a softer PC market in the second half and was looking to extend its IP into servers, including 10G Ethernet and server-control-plane switches. 1
• Monolithic Power Systems, eighth at $981 million, relied on AI-related power-management products and continued capacity expansion as it moved toward a broader semiconductor-solutions offering. 1
• OmniVision, tenth at $838 million, faced memory-price pressure on smartphone and automotive image-sensor demand, while pursuing growth in action cameras and optical-interconnect EICs such as TIAs and drivers. 1

How the fabless result compares with global chip sales

The Semiconductor Industry Association reported $403.3 billion in worldwide semiconductor sales for Q2 2026, up 35.1% sequentially. It said June sales were $134.5 billion, up 123.6% year over year. 18

TrendForce’s $141.45 billion fabless figure is roughly 35% of SIA’s Q2 global-sales figure, but these are not like-for-like measures. TrendForce counts revenue from only the 10 largest fabless IC designers; SIA’s data represent the overall global semiconductor market. 118

Still, the 73% year-over-year gain among the top fabless designers points to a clear concentration of growth in AI-oriented suppliers. NVIDIA, Broadcom and AMD were the most visible beneficiaries, while companies tied more closely to smartphones and PCs faced a more mixed demand environment. 1