Investing.com — Macquarie upgraded Broadcom to outperform in a note to clients on Thursday, arguing that the risk from Google bringing chip production in-house has largely played out and that the company is now the cleanest listed way to gain exposure to artificial intelligence developer Anthropic’s compute buildout.
Analyst Arthur Lai said the shares’ roughly 24% slide from their 2026 high, together with Google’s direct investment in MediaTek, showed the insourcing threat was already reflected in the price.
“Broadcom is the cleanest listed proxy for Anthropic’s compute ramp,” he wrote, forecasting that Anthropic will purchase more than $40 billion from Broadcom in fiscal 2028, more than offsetting the lost Google business.
Broadcom’s third-quarter results were in line with expectations, with revenue up 33% quarter on quarter to $29.6 billion. Gross profit margin slipped 2 percentage points to 75.0% as faster-growing, lower-margin AI semiconductor revenue outpaced software, while net profit beat Macquarie’s estimate by 4%.
Lai also pointed to a broader customer base as reducing risk. “Growth now rests more evenly on six XPU customers,” he wrote, noting management expects OpenAI to become the second-largest XPU customer by fiscal 2028 and Meta to ship three generations of its MTIA chip.
Macquarie raised its fiscal 2026, 2027 and 2028 earnings estimates by 2%, 0% and 12%, respectively, and lifted its price target 12% to $490, implying total shareholder return of about 35%.
“Broadcom dominates the rapid-growth AI ASIC market and SerDes/IP moat secures long-term edge in custom silicon, while its software business adds margin resilience and recurring visibility,” Lai wrote.
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