New York, May 11, 2026, 05:10 ET
Shares of Advanced Micro Devices climbed pre-market Monday, tacking on to a recent surge that’s thrust the chipmaker into the AI hardware spotlight. As of 5:09 a.m. ET, AMD was indicated at $459.80, up 1.01% ahead of the bell. The stock finished Friday at $455.19, up 11.44% for the day.
It’s a shift worth noting: investors have started looking beyond just the dominant AI chip players. Semiconductors steered the action on Friday, pushing both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new records. AMD jumped over 11%, Micron surged roughly 15.5%, and Intel also rallied on fresh enthusiasm for data-center demand, according to a Monday note from Saxo.
The focus for AMD has moved quickly. The market isn’t only watching if AMD can move more AI chips; the bigger question now is whether data-center processor demand holds up enough to justify the stock’s recent surge.
Advanced Micro Devices last week reported first-quarter revenue up 38% to $10.3 billion. Data-center sales surged 57% to $5.8 billion, lifted by solid demand for EPYC server chips and Instinct GPUs powering AI. For the current quarter, AMD is targeting revenue of roughly $11.2 billion, give or take $300 million.
Lisa Su, the chief executive, called data center the “primary driver” behind AMD’s revenue and earnings gains, highlighting strong demand in inferencing and agentic AI—technology geared for systems that operate with limited human input. Chief Financial Officer Jean Hu flagged “record quarterly free cash flow,” with AMD balancing growth investments against efforts to boost margins. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Wall Street didn’t waste time. Goldman Sachs gave AMD a Buy rating and doubled its price target to $450, up from $240. Analyst James Schneider pointed to agentic AI boosting the company’s server CPU prospects. Bernstein also got more bullish, moving to Outperform and bumping its target to $525 from $265. Analyst Stacy Rasgon described AMD’s bigger server ambitions as “potentially plausible.” Investing.com
Barclays echoed the bullish sentiment, labeling AMD “one of the most interesting plays in AI right now.” Jefferies, for its part, went with the headline “Server CPU Steals the Show,” Business Insider reported. Bank of America laid out an aggressive scenario: AMD potentially grabbing close to half of the $120 billion server CPU market that the company itself is targeting by 2030. Business Insider
The CPU angle matters here. CPUs—central processing units—are the chips that handle core computing tasks. Nvidia has a lock on GPUs, but AMD sees an opening: as artificial intelligence moves from model training to real-world deployment, cloud players will need to bulk up on CPUs alongside accelerators. According to Reuters, AMD is now projecting the server CPU market will jump more than 35% each year, topping $120 billion by 2030.
Rivals are pushing hard. Nvidia still sets the pace for AI accelerator chips. Intel, on the other hand, is banking on strength in CPUs and fresh manufacturing contracts to revive its prospects. Lynx Equity, pointing to a reported Apple chip partnership, said it’s staying with Intel over AMD—arguing the Apple deal is giving Intel shares an extra boost.
The risk here: much of the rally may already be baked in. AMD shares recently changed hands at about 42.4 times forward earnings, Reuters noted, well above the five-year average of 30—and close to double Nvidia’s 21-times multiple. That’s while Nvidia commands more of the AI market. On top of that, AMD has to contend with pricier memory and components. CFO Jean Hu warned that gaming revenue in the second half could drop more than 20% versus the first.
Still, AMD isn’t just getting the “runner-up” label in AI GPUs from investors. The narrative has shifted—broader compute is front and center: CPUs, GPUs, cloud clients, and major AI rollouts are all moving in tandem now.
Monday puts buyers’ appetite for that thesis to the test after last week’s surge. The stock carries momentum now, but expectations leave little space for disappointment.
