Despite a record-breaking second-quarter earnings report, Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) shares faced a significant sell-off, failing to meet Wall Street's lofty AI-fueled expectations. In a recent interview, CEO Hock Tan responded with characteristic confidence, stating he "never cares about the stock price." He also revealed for the first time the production timeline for its chip collaboration with OpenAI and detailed the remarkable returns from betting on the "Broadcom-Google-Anthropic" ecosystem.
At the Bloomberg Technology Summit 2026 in San Francisco on June 5, Broadcom's President and CEO Hock Tan was interviewed by Bloomberg's Tom Giles. They discussed semiconductor demand, scaling artificial intelligence, and revenue prospects. This conversation followed the company's strong fiscal Q2 2026 results, which were nonetheless met with a sharp decline in its share price.
The latest earnings report showed Broadcom's quarterly net revenue surpassed $22 billion for the first time, a year-over-year increase of approximately 48%. Revenue from its AI semiconductor business surged nearly 80%. However, the company's Q3 AI semiconductor revenue guidance of $16 billion fell slightly short of some analysts' "extremely high expectations" of over $17 billion. This triggered profit-taking in the AI high-flyer, which had seen its market cap surge over $300 billion this year, causing its stock to tumble more than 10% in after-hours trading.
CEO's Unwavering Focus Amid Market Frenzy
Facing the market's near-perfectionist expectations during this "AI mania cycle," Tan displayed the composure of a seasoned tech industry leader. He was direct in his assessment.
"We are in a very surreal AI environment. Frankly, I never think about it [the market's sky-high expectations]. It's hard to ignore now, but I just focus on the fundamentals, on creating tremendous value, and stop thinking about the stock price. Paying attention to the stock price only brings trouble. It's hard to do, but we are trying to do it [not look at the price]."
Competing on Engineering and the Strategic Alliance
In the field of AI custom chips (ASICs), Broadcom's deep partnership with Google on Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) is the cornerstone of its performance. Addressing market concerns that giants like Google seeking "customer-owned toolchains" (i.e., fully self-developed chips) could threaten Broadcom's position, Tan appeared unperturbed.
"We've been in the semiconductor industry for over 20 years... What we have to do is out-engineer any competitor." Tan pointed out that Google is attempting to achieve self-design with the help of smaller partners, but he believes the core logic remains a head-to-head technological battle.
He highlighted the fundamental reason for Broadcom's irreplaceability: the relentless pressure from Nvidia.
"The real competitor Google faces is Nvidia's GPU. As long as Nvidia continues to roll out great technology generation after generation, Google has to create technology of equal caliber to compete. That's where we [Broadcom] come in."
High-Stakes Bet on the AI Ecosystem
Beyond underlying hardware, Broadcom has made a remarkably precise bet on the AI large model ecosystem. About a year ago, Broadcom partnered with Google to provide computing power for the rising AI giant Anthropic through jointly designed TPUs. Tan described this as a "leap of faith."
"It was a great bet." Tan stated that Broadcom is not only bullish on Anthropic but also on the explosion of generative AI in the enterprise sector. He revealed that Broadcom is deeply using Anthropic's Opus 4.7 and other large model tools internally for engineering design and code assistance, with an extremely impressive return on investment.
"When engineers become proficient with these tools, you can have one great senior engineer design an application in a week; whereas in the past, it would take 10 engineers earning $300,000 a year each three months to complete. That kind of ROI is very significant."
Clarifying Rumors and Production Timeline
Last year, the market closely followed the historic chip collaboration between Broadcom and OpenAI. Addressing recent media reports suggesting the partnership had "encountered obstacles" or "required Microsoft to agree to purchase a certain percentage of chips," Tan offered a clear denial during the interview.
Tan disclosed for the first time the client landscape for Broadcom's custom AI accelerators.
"To be precise, we only have 6 [custom chip] customers, each at different stages of creating their own silicon. Obviously, Google is the furthest ahead. OpenAI is one of the customers we work with, and we have been deeply engaged with three of them for over two years now."
Regarding the progress of the OpenAI chip, he provided a clear timeline.
"We've achieved something quite remarkable. The AI accelerator is running extremely well in their labs and data centers. We are on track to go into production late this year. Everything is ready, we are about to take off."
When pressed by the host on whether any agreement with Microsoft was needed to advance the cooperation, Tan answered unequivocally: "Not at all."
Organic Growth Over Acquisitions
Historically known on Wall Street for its aggressive and precise mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Broadcom, in the face of the computing demand ignited by generative AI, has entered a new phase. Tan clearly stated the company currently does not need to be driven by M&A.
"This is a very real question." Tan laid out the numbers, "Between 2024 and 2026, my revenue will double, generating over $50 billion in revenue annually. I look around, what can I buy that compares to that scale? Nothing."
He emphasized that the current demand for computing power from generative AI is almost "insatiable." As a provider of the "picks and shovels," Broadcom's organic growth is already astonishing. Pursuing M&A, dealing with regulation, and integration at this point would be a "distraction."
"I've run this business model for 20 years. I try very hard to avoid chasing 'shiny objects' [referring to blindly acquiring hot concepts]."
Confidence in Core Businesses
When discussing Broadcom's network switching business, where it holds a dominant position and faces competition from companies like Cisco, Tan maintained extreme confidence. He stated that Broadcom is not only number one in the market in 5 to 6 core divisions but is also key to building AI clusters.
"The current demand for AI and AI networking is extremely huge. We will prioritize supplying our products to those strategic customers who are sustainable." Tan added with a smile, "As for the orders that spill over [beyond our capacity], I'm happy to let Cisco have them."
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