NEW YORK, January 2, 2026, 10:28 ET
- Advanced Micro Devices shares rose about 5% in early Friday trading.
- New commentary is focusing on AMD’s 2026 data-center AI accelerator roadmap.
- AMD is positioning its Helios rack-scale platform as a push into Nvidia-dominated AI infrastructure.
Advanced Micro Devices’ shares rose about 5% on Friday, kicking off 2026 with a fresh burst of optimism around the chipmaker’s artificial intelligence hardware plans. The stock was up 5.2% at $225.24 by 10:13 a.m. ET.
The early-year move comes as investors reassess demand for AI infrastructure after a strong 2025 run for chip stocks. AMD is pitching a new generation of data-center accelerators and “rack-scale” systems as it tries to win larger deployments from cloud and enterprise customers.
Commentary published over the past two days has put AMD’s 2026 server roadmap back in the spotlight. The focus is on whether the company can execute on timing and volume in a market where customers are still scrambling for compute capacity.
In a Dec. 31 analysis on Nasdaq, MarketBeat contributor Thomas Hughes called AMD one of the most compelling AI trades for 2026, arguing its planned MI450 line of graphics processing units, or GPUs, could broaden its appeal to hyperscalers — the largest cloud computing firms. Hughes said AMD has lagged in “rack-scale” capability, where vendors sell pre-configured racks of chips and networking to speed data-center buildouts. 1
Insider Monkey on Friday also highlighted a Q3 2025 investor letter from Alpha Wealth Funds’ Insiders Fund that said AMD is gaining ground across AI and data-center computing. The letter said AMD shares had gained 77.5% over the past 52 weeks and noted the stock closed at $214.16 on Dec. 31, valuing the company at about $349 billion. 2
A separate Insider Monkey report cited TD Cowen’s December call reiterating a buy rating and a $290 price target, framing AMD’s Helios platform and MI450 accelerators as a mid-2026 inflection point. The note pointed to AMD’s hardware roadmap and ROCm — its software platform for developers building AI applications — as part of the case for wider adoption. 3
AMD has set expectations for that cycle before. At its Financial Analyst Day in New York in November, the company said Helios systems built around Instinct MI450 GPUs are expected to start delivering rack-scale performance in the third quarter of 2026, alongside long-term targets that include annual revenue growth above 35%. “AMD is entering a new era of growth,” Chief Executive Lisa Su said. 4
Nvidia, whose chips dominate much of the market for training and running generative AI models, has benefited from tight supply and deep ties with the biggest buyers. AMD’s challenge is to match performance and ease of use, while proving it can ship systems at scale.
AI accelerators are specialized chips — often GPUs — that handle the heavy math behind chatbots and other machine-learning systems. Rack-scale systems bundle dozens of accelerators with networking and cooling so data centers can add capacity faster than wiring individual servers.
Investors will look for signs of customer commitments and manufacturing readiness as AMD moves toward the 2026 launch window. Any sign of delays or weaker demand would carry extra weight after the stock’s sharp gains over the past year.
