By Anhata Rooprai
May 27 (Reuters) - Marvell Technology forecast on Wednesday its custom chip business would surpass $10 billion in revenue in fiscal 2029, as cloud companies expand AI data centers and invest in custom chips to reduce reliance on Nvidia's processors.
The surge in AI adoption has fueled demand for specialized chips, which along with Marvell's interconnect technologies, play a critical role in advanced data centers by linking thousands of processors used to train and run AI models.
The
company's shares have more than doubled so far this year.
The custom chip revenue guidance "implies $5 billion in incremental revenue from FY28 to FY29 exclusively from one business, portending another robust growth year in FY29," Morningstar analyst William Kerwin said.
Marvell now expects 2028 revenue to grow to about $16.5 billion, up from its prior forecast of $15 billion.
Second-quarter revenue is expected to be $2.70 billion, plus or minus 5%, compared with the analysts' average estimate of $2.60 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. Adjusted profit is expected to be 93 cents per share, plus or minus 5 cents, above estimates of 90 cents apiece.
Marvell and larger rival Broadcom help cloud-computing companies design custom chips tuned to their specific data center needs, and that work has grown into a large business for both companies.
"We have custom engagements across the board at all the U.S. hyperscalers," CEO Matt Murphy told analysts on the earnings call.
The company has been a key beneficiary of surging capital spending by hyperscalers, who use its technology for high-speed connectivity inside data centers.
U.S. tech giants, including Alphabet and Amazon are expected to spend more than $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a sharp rise from around $400 billion in 2025.
Marvell said it expects its data center business to grow by about 50% this year. Revenue in this segment came in at $1.83 billion in the first quarter, beating estimates of $1.81 billion.
In the first quarter, its revenue rose 28% to $2.42 billion, beating estimates of $2.40 billion. Adjusted profit came in at 80 cents per share, exceeding estimates of 79 cents.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; editing by Alan Barona)
