ZURICH, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Siemens raised its full-year profit outlook on Thursday after first-quarter profit exceeded expectations, boosted by surging demand for AI-driven data-centre infrastructure and sending ​shares up over 6% in early trading.

CEO ‌Roland Busch said the data-centre business pushed up its revenue by more than ⁠a third in the quarter through December, and that "demand for ⁠data centres has considerably exceeded our expectations."

"We're confident ‌we'll be able ‌to maintain this pace throughout fiscal 2026," he told reporters after the results ​were announced.

Shares surged 6.4% in early ‌trading in Frankfurt, and were the biggest gainer on the Stoxx Europe 600 Industrials index which was ​up 0.7%.

During its first quarter ​through December, ‌industrial profit jumped 15% to 2.90 billion euros ($3.44 billion), beating analysts' consensus forecasts for 2.64 billion euros.

As a result, ⁠Siemens raised its basic earnings outlook for its full ⁠year through September to a range of 10.70 to 11.10 euros per share from 10.40 to 11.00 euros.

SALES AND ORDERS GROW IN FIRST QUARTER

Siemens said first-quarter sales rose 4% to 19.14 ⁠billion ‌euros, beating the 19.09 billion forecast of analysts, ‌while orders rose 7%.

Busch said artificial intelligence had been a ⁠strong growth driver for the company.

"We're scaling industrial AI in our core industries," he said. "By integrating AI deeply into design, development, products and operations, we're adding measurable value for our customers."

Among Siemens' AI products are software which helps 'train' logistics robots to recognise different box sizes, allow ​operators to speak to machines to identify and fix mechanical problems and also to speed up the design process for new ​products from weeks to days.  

($1 = ‌0.8431 euros)