TAIPEI, April 16 (Reuters) – TSMC, the world’s largest ‌contract chipmaker, posted ‌a 58% jump in first-quarter ​net profit on Thursday, beating market forecasts and hitting a record, ‌as ⁠it benefits from huge appetite globally for ⁠its artificial intelligence processors.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ​Co, whose ​customers ​include Nvidia and ‌Apple, saw January-March net profit rise to T$572.5 billion ($18.2 billion).

The profit handily beat a T$543.3 ‌billion LSEG ​SmartEstimate, which ​is ​weighted toward forecasts ‌from analysts who are ​more ​consistently accurate.

($1 = 31.5180 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Wen-Yee ​Lee, ‌Faith Hung and ​Ben Blanchard; Editing by ​Edwina Gibbs)