AI Chip Demand Lifts Third-Quarter Sales at Syensqo, Air Liquide and Linde

Chief executive Mike Radossich told journalists the company expected a further step up. "We'll probably see a 25% second-half improvement in our sales in semiconductors over the first half," he said, according to Reuters.

The results matter because they show the spending on AI computing reaching deep into the supply chain. Chipmakers adding capacity for AI processors and memory need large volumes of ultra-pure gases and specialty chemicals, and the companies that make them are now among the clearest beneficiaries outside the chip sector itself. AI servers use far more silicon than conventional computing equipment, which has made AI the main growth engine for chipmakers.

Industrial gas makers Linde and Air Liquide both reported better-than-expected third-quarter results last week, each helped by double-digit sales growth in businesses that supply semiconductor plants. Air Liquide reported third-quarter revenue of 7.26 billion euros, with its electronics sales up 12% on a comparable basis, and said its electronics investments in the first nine months of 2026 were nearly double its total for all of 2025.

The suppliers are building ahead of demand. Air Liquide agreed in August to buy South Korea's DIG Airgas for 2.85 billion euros, and has announced a new plant in Taiwan and nearly 200 million euros of investment to support an SK hynix semiconductor project. Linde committed $1 billion in July to supply a large chip manufacturing site in Arizona.

Solvay, which spun off Syensqo in 2023, said in September that it would double capacity at its ultra-pure hydrogen peroxide plant in Taiwan's Tainan Science Park, where TSMC is expanding production of 3-nanometre chips.

The strength in electronics contrasts with weaker demand elsewhere in European chemicals. Linde's overall underlying sales growth was more modest than its electronics growth, according to reports on its results. Syensqo's guidance implies the semiconductor lift will continue through the end of the year.