Dec 12 (Reuters) - Broadcom ( AVGO ) forecast its

first-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Thursday,

betting on booming demand for its custom artificial intelligence

chips and networking gear from cloud providers doubling down on

GenAI infrastructure adoption.

Shares of the Palo Alto, California-based company rose over

3% in extended trading, having gained about 60% so far this year

as one of the largest beneficiaries of a rally in AI-linked

shares.

Big tech has been vying to reduce its dependence of pricey,

supply-constrained AI processors made by front-runner Nvidia ( NVDA )

, helping Broadcom ( AVGO ) which makes advanced custom

artificial intelligence chips for so-called hyperscalers.

Demand for Broadcom's ( AVGO ) networking chips that help move around

vast amounts of data used by applications such as OpenAI's

ChatGPT has also increased, as businesses double down on

investments in GenAI infrastructure.

The company forecast revenue of about $14.6 billion for the

first quarter, compared with analysts' average estimate of

$14.57 billion according to data compiled by LSEG.

Though the company faces intense competition from Nvidia's ( NVDA )

ethernet-like Infiniband products, Broadcom ( AVGO ) still benefits from

the expansion of AI data centers as it is one of the largest

providers of advanced networking equipment.

While hailed as a chipmaker, Broadcom ( AVGO ) has proliferated into

a tech conglomerate owing to buyouts such as its $69 billion

acquisition of cloud-computing firm VMware. The infrastructure

software segment grew 196% to $5.82 billion in the fourth

quarter.

The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $14.05

billion, compared with expectations of $14.09 billion.

On an adjusted basis, Broadcom ( AVGO ) earned $1.42 per share

compared with estimates of $1.38 per share.