Alphabet Inc. investors are growing increasingly confident that the company’s semiconductors could represent a significant driver of future revenue for Google’s parent.

The success of Alphabet’s tensor processing unit, or TPU, chips is a primary reason for the stock’s 30% fourth-quarter rally, putting it among the best performers in the S&P 500 Index. The TPUs were always seen as a major strength internally, accelerating growth for the company’s cloud-computing business. But there’s rising optimism that Alphabet could start selling the chips to third parties, creating a new revenue stream in a business that could ultimately be worth almost a trillion dollars.

Shares were down 1% on Thursday.

“If companies want to diversify away from Nvidia, TPUs are a good way to do it, and that means t

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