he logo of SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) at the
The logo of SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) at the chip maker's facilities at Pudong district, Shanghai Hector RETAMAL/Getty Images

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. said first-half net profit rose 94.2% from a year earlier to 4.467 billion yuan, as revenue climbed 19.4% to 38.635 billion yuan on stronger demand for chips feeding artificial intelligence hardware, according to interim results released Thursday.

SMIC trades in Hong Kong as 0981.HK and on Shanghai's STAR Market as 688981.SH, and its Hong Kong-listed shares sit in the Hang Seng TECH Index, making the results a direct read on sentiment for the city's chip sector heading into Friday's session.

Gross margin for the six months reached 23.2%, up 1.3 percentage points year-on-year, while profit excluding one-off items rose 57.2% to 2.994 billion yuan. Operating cash flow more than tripled to 20.76 billion yuan.

The company pointed to AI-related demand as the driver, saying orders for supporting chips used in AI systems picked up sharply and customers pulled forward purchases during the period. China accounted for 89.6% of revenue, up from 84.2% a year earlier, as more manufacturing orders shifted onshore.

The stronger back half of the period showed up most clearly in the second quarter alone, when SMIC's gross margin under international accounting standards hit 25.3% — its highest in more than a year — on quarterly revenue that topped $3 billion for the first time, the company disclosed in an August 13 filing.

Looking ahead, SMIC told investors in that same filing it expects third-quarter revenue to grow 2% to 4% sequentially, with gross margin guided to a range of 26% to 28%.