Broadcom reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue and issued a strong forecast for the current period as the chipmaker continues to benefit from the artificial intelligence boom.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

• Earnings per share: $2.05 adjusted vs. $2.03 estimated
• Revenue: $19.31 billion vs. $19.18 billion estimated

Revenue jumped 29% year over year during the fiscal first quarter, which ended on Feb. 1, according to a statement.

Net income increased to $7.35 billion, or $1.50 per share, from $5.50 billion, or $1.14 per share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Adjusted earnings exclude stock-based compensation and tax adjustments.

For the second quarter, Broadcom said it anticipates a 68% adjusted profit margin, higher than StreetAccount’s 66% consensus. The company said it’s looking for $22 billion in revenue, beating the $20.56 billion average estimate, according to LSEG.

Broadcom helps other companies translate their chip designs into silicon, providing intellectual property and backend technologies before they’re sent off to chip fabrication plants from companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It’s a role that’s gained importance as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft design customized chips.

AI revenue soared 106% from a year earlier to $8.4 billion, “driven by robust demand for custom AI accelerators and AI networking,” CEO Hock Tan said in the statement.

Tan had called for a doubling of AI revenue in December. He said the company expects AI semiconductor revenue of $10.7 billion this period.

Broadcom reported $12.52 billion in revenue from semiconductor solutions, higher than the $12.25 billion that analysts polled by StreetAccount expected. During the quarter, Broadcom announced new Wi-Fi 8 chips.

For infrastructure software, Broadcom said it generated $6.80 billion in revenue, lower than StreetAccount’s $7.02 billion consensus.

Broadcom said its board authorized up to $10 billion in new share buybacks through 2026.

In December Tan said Anthropic had placed a $10 billion custom chip order. Last week U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon would dub Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security” and President Donald Trump directed government agencies to stop using Anthropic after the AI startup refused to permit uses of its technology for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.

As of Wednesday’s close, Broadcom shares were down 8% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 index was flat.

Executives will discuss the results on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

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AI robots will exceed the working population within a few decades as more firms adopt AI agents and continue to squeeze costs, a former Citi executive warned on Monday.

Rob Garlick, Citi Global Insights’ former head of innovation, technology, and future of work, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that as leaders continue to prioritize profitability, their human workers will be left in the dust.

“We have a leadership system in the economic terms and business terms that celebrates profitability,” Garlick said in a conversation with CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick and Ben Boulos.

“When you marry profitability up with the technology progress, we have the biggest trade in history coming, which is basically that artificial intelligence will be able to do more and more, better and better, cheaper and cheaper, and that will be able to substitute for people.”

Garlick, who recently authored “AI – Anarchy or Abundance? Why the Future of Work Needs Pro-Human Leaders,” explained that his previous research at Citi showed that the number of AI robots is going to skyrocket as a result of these business decisions.

“We’re going to go over the next couple of decades to more moving robots than the working population, and then you add on agents, little agents, and it is going to explode,” he added.

AI robots ranging from humanoids to domestic cleaning robots and autonomous vehicles are forecasted to increase to 1.3 billion by 2035, according to a 2024 Citi report led by Garlick. The number of AI robots would quickly increase to over 4 billion by 2050, per the insights.

The Citi report even measured how long it would take for a robot to pay for itself through the money saved by replacing a human worker, for example, a $15,000 robot would break even in 3.8 weeks for a $41 an hour human job, or 21.6 weeks for a $7.25 human job. Meanwhile, a robot that costs $35,000 would have a payback time of 8.9 weeks for a $41 an hour human job.

“You can already buy a humanoid today, which gives you a payback period versus human workers of less than 10 weeks,” Garlick told CNBC, citing a figure from his book. “Humans can’t compete on this basis.”

Microsoft’s Work Trend Index report showed that 80% of leaders expect AI agents to be largely integrated into their AI strategy within the next 12 to 18 months. AI agents are a type of software program that can make decisions and complete tasks without much human direction.

Meanwhile, McKinsey & Company’s global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, noted that the company currently employs 20,000 agents alongside 40,000 humans, in an interview with Harvard Business Review. A year prior, the company only had 3,000 agents, and Sternfels predicts that in 18 months from now, there will be an equal number of employees and agents.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also shared similar views at the World Economic Forum’s flagship conference in Davos last month, saying that AI will likely surpass human intelligence by the end of this year.

“My prediction is, in the benign scenario of the future, that we will actually make so many robots in AI that they will actually saturate all human… there will be such an abundance of goods and services because my prediction is that there’ll be more robots than people,” Musk said.

Fears around AI replacing workers have mounted in the past year as major firms, including Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Heineken, and Lufthansa, have cited the technology as part of the reason for eliminating thousands of roles.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director at the International Monetary Fund, told CNBC in January that AI is “hitting the labor market like a tsunami” and warned that “most countries and most businesses are not prepared for it.”

In the U.S., AI played a role in almost 55,000 layoffs in the U.S. in 2025, according to December data from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

However, some leaders are striking a more positive tone. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang predicts that the “AI boom” will create six-figure salaries for the workers building AI and chip factories. Huang said the technology will boost skilled trade work, such as for plumbers, electricians, construction, and steel workers.

U.S. trading partners offered a cautious welcome to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to strike down large parts of President Donald Trump’s flagship trade policy on global tariffs — but global trade bodies warned of lingering uncertainty surrounding import levies.

The law that undergirds the import duties “does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” the majority ruled six to three in the long-awaited Supreme Court decision.

Hours after the ruling, Trump said he signed an executive order imposing a new 10% “global tariff”. The “Section 122” tariffs will take effect “almost immediately,” Trump said. At a White House press briefing Friday afternoon, Trump railed against the “deeply disappointing” 6-3 ruling.

Trump’s tariff regime impacted a swathe of countries from the U.K. to India and the European Union. Some governments, like Vietnam and Brazil are still in negotiations.

Taiwan, home to the the world’s leading contract chipmaker and producer of the most advanced semiconductors, said the 10% flat tariff rate would, according to an initial assessment, have a “limited impact” on its economy.

The island will continue to “closely monitor” developments and maintain close communication with the U.S. to understand the specific measures and respond in a timely manner, the Taiwanese cabinet said in a statement on Saturday.

French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly said the Supreme Court’s ruling proved the benefit of having an effective counterweight to power.

“It is not bad to have a Supreme Court and, therefore, the rule of law,” Reuters quoted him as saying at an event in Paris on Saturday.

A U.K. government spokesperson said the country would continue to work with the White House administration to understand how the ruling will affect tariffs for the U.K. and the rest of the world

“This is a matter for the U.S. to determine but we will continue to support U.K. businesses as further details are announced,” the spokesperson said.

“The U.K. enjoys the lowest reciprocal tariffs globally, and under any scenario we expect our privileged trading position with the U.S. to continue.” The U.K. agreed a wide-ranging trade deal with the U.S. in May last year, which imposed a broad 10% levy on many goods, but also included certain carve-outs on steel, aluminum, cars and pharmaceuticals.

The Supreme Court case focused mainly on reciprocal tariffs, and the ruling leaves much of the U.K.’s trade deal with the U.S. — including preferential sectoral tariffs on steel, pharmaceuticals and autos — unaffected.

However, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) trade body said the U.S. Supreme Court decision adds to the ongoing uncertainty around levies.

William Bain, head of trade policy at the BCC, said the move “does little to clear the murky waters” for British businesses, warning that the President still has “other options at his disposal” to retain his current regime on steel and aluminum tariffs.  

“The court’s decision also raises questions on how U.S. importers can reclaim levies already paid and whether U.K. exporters can also receive a share of any rebate depending on commercial trading terms,” Bain said in a statement. “For the U.K., the priority remains bringing tariffs down wherever possible.”

Olof Gill, European Commission spokesperson for trade and economic security, said businesses on both sides of the Atlantic depend on “stability and predictability.”

“We remain in close contact with the U.S. Administration as we seek clarity on the steps they intend to take in response to this ruling,” Gill said. “We therefore continue to advocate for low tariffs and to work towards reducing them.”

Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister for U.S.-Canadian trade relations, said the decision “reinforces Canada’s position that the IEEPA tariffs imposed by the United States are unjustified.”

The progress of Chinese tech companies across the entire stack is “remarkable,” OpenAI’s Sam Altman told CNBC, pointing to “many fields” including AI.

Altman’s comments come as China races against the U.S. to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) — where AI matches human capabilities — and roll out the technology across society.

Chinese progress is “amazingly fast,” he said. In some areas Chinese tech companies are near the frontier, while in others they lag behind, Altman added.

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