By Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Yimou Lee

TAIPEI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - TSMC, the world's main producer of advanced AI chips and a major supplier to Nvidia, on Thursday posted a 35% jump in fourth-quarter profit to record levels that blew past market forecasts and predicted more robust growth this year.

Riding high on the global boom in artificial intelligence, it said first-quarter revenue could surge as much as 40% from a year earlier to $35.8 billion, adding that it expected to increase capital spending in 2026 to as much as 37% to $56 billion.

Customers were "providing strong signals" and reaching out directly to request capacity, said TSMC, Asia's most valuable listed company with a market capitalisation of around $1.4 trillion - more than twice that of South Korean rival Samsung Electronics.

Net profit for October-December climbed to T$505.7 billion ($16 billion), its seventh straight quarter of double-digit growth.

That was well ahead of a T$478.4 billion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts. SmartEstimates are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.

Trump's trade policies and threats to put tariffs on semiconductors have created much uncertainty for the global chip industry, though that uncertainty has yet to seriously impair surging profits on the back of the AI boom.

Its results came as Taiwan signalled on Thursday that a tariff deal with the United States could come soon. The island's exports to the United States are subject to a 20% tariff, although that excludes chips.

In March last year, TSMC announced plans for a $100 billion U.S. investment, on top of $65 billion pledged for three plants in the state of Arizona, one of which is up and running.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a podcast released last week the company was set to invest more in the country.

TSMC's Taipei-listed shares jumped 44% last year, outperforming a 25.7% rise for the broader market. They are up around 9% so far this year.

($1 = 31.5920 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Yimou Lee; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Edwina Gibbs)