Yet the market, jittery and perhaps a touch spoiled by soaring chip stocks, responded with a shrug. Despite a 12% climb in Broadcom shares this year, they slid 4% in after-hours trading, as Wall Street seemed underwhelmed by a revenue projection of $15.80 billion - just a sliver above the $15.71 billion consensus.

"Clearly, expectations were high coming into the print with the stock rising almost 30% in the past month," noted Kinngai Chan, an analyst at Summit Insights Group. It appears that even solid growth isn't enough when the bar has been raised sky-high by generative AI enthusiasm.

AI chips at the core

Broadcom has planted its flag firmly in the AI hardware landscape. It designs highly specialized integrated circuits used by major cloud computing firms like OpenAI and Google. The recent rollout of its Tomahawk 6 networking chip - a piece of silicon that doubles the throughput of its predecessor - underscores Broadcom's focus on accelerating AI workloads across sprawling data center networks.

CEO Hock Tan pointed to the AI segment as a pillar of future growth, predicting that semiconductor revenue from this area will swell to $5.1 billion in the third quarter. That would mark ten straight quarters of growth as hyperscale clients continue to pour capital into next-gen infrastructure.

AI up, everything else waits

The broader semiconductor segment, which includes chips for data centers and networking, grew 16.7% to $8.41 billion in Q2. Yet not all parts of Broadcom’s portfolio are surging. Non-AI semiconductor revenues remain sluggish, with Tan acknowledging they are likely near the bottom of their cycle.

For now, Broadcom is riding the AI wave. But in a market saturated with AI optimism, even a good wave may not be enough to dazzle.