March 5 (Reuters) - Chip designer Marvell Technology forecast first-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Thursday, signaling rising demand for custom semiconductors used in data centers to support artificial intelligence applications.

Shares of the company rose around 6% in extended trading.

The company expects revenue of around $2.40 billion, plus or minus 5% for first quarter, above analysts' average estimate of $2.27 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Marvell and rival Broadcom help cloud-computing companies design custom chips tailored to their data-center workloads, a fast-growing business as hyperscalers seek alternatives to Nvidia's general-purpose AI processors.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)