Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. climbed its most in almost half a year after posting its first monthly sales gain since February, underlining expectations the global chip market is recovering gradually from Covid-era troughs.

TSMC’s shares jumped as much as 4.1% in unusually heavy trading, notching their biggest intraday rise since May. The world’s largest supplier of made-to-order chips on Friday recorded a 15.7% gain in revenue to NT$243.2 billion ($7.5 billion) in October — the first time monthly sales have grown from a year earlier since February. Revenue for the first 10 months was down 3.7% to NT$1.78 trillion.

TSMC Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei said last month the company was counting on the chip market hitting bottom “very soon,” after more than a year of post-Covid malaise. The AI boom has spurred demand for chips that train large language models.

The primary chipmaker to Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. last month projected sales of $18.8 billion to $19.6 billion this quarter, ahead of analysts’ expectations. TSMC would need to book roughly $11.7 billion in sales over the rest of the year to reach the mid-point of that outlook.

Read More: TSMC Foresees Long-Awaited Chip Recovery After Outlook Beat