NEW YORK, April 16, 2026, 11:36 AM EDT
Bernstein bumped up its price targets for both Advanced Micro Devices and Intel on Thursday, pointing to stronger demand for AI data center server chips even as PC sales lagged. By late morning in New York, AMD shares had surged 5.8% to $273.19, while Intel climbed 4.1% to $67.57—both now trading above Bernstein’s revised targets.
This shift is catching attention: AI-driven demand continues to ripple across the chip supply chain, reaching beyond Nvidia’s main accelerator segment. Both ASML and TSMC raised their forecasts this week, citing yet another period of robust spend from cloud giants. Meta, for its part, is locking in longer-term supply agreements as capacity remains stretched.
Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon bumped AMD’s price target up to $265 from $235 and raised Intel to $60 from $36, sticking with Market Perform on both names. The note pointed to firmer expectations for server chips but softer outlooks for PCs.
Rasgon’s latest call for AMD: EPYC server-chip sales up roughly 50% in 2026, driven in part by the Meta AI partnership—something he argues consensus hasn’t fully priced in yet. Bernstein’s taking up its revenue targets, now looking for $45.8 billion in 2026 and $76.7 billion for 2027.
The Meta agreement was sizable. Back in February, AMD and Meta announced a multi-year, multi-generation deal calling for up to 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs. The first gigawatt’s worth is scheduled to start shipping in the second half of 2026. At the time, the deal was valued at as much as $60 billion over five years. “Meta is making a big bet on AMD,” CEO Lisa Su said. AMD
Meta’s making moves to expand its lineup. The company just lengthened its custom-chip deal with Broadcom, pushing the partnership out to 2029. Back in February, Meta’s infrastructure boss Santosh Janardhan flagged the scale-up, saying it would take “multiple chip vendors and approaches.” Hargreaves Lansdown’s Matt Britzman called it what it is: Meta’s “locking in supply.” Reuters
Bernstein has bumped up its server forecasts and gross-margin projections for Intel, but trimmed its expectations for the PC side. The firm, according to TipRanks, is now looking for Xeon server-chip sales to climb roughly 36% in 2026, and sees revenue hitting $53.3 billion that year—still shy of where the consensus sits.
Timing’s a factor for Intel, with first-quarter earnings due April 23. The chipmaker has spent the past several weeks working to sharpen its AI story, leaning on an expanded Google alliance focused on Xeon processors and its custom IPUs—chips built to push networking, storage, and security tasks away from the CPU. Last week, Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan put it bluntly: “scaling AI requires more than accelerators.” Intel Corporation
Nvidia still leads the AI chip pack, though pressure on the supply chain hasn’t eased. TSMC’s C.C. Wei described demand as “so strong,” adding that capacity remains under strain—a key reason cloud players are striking multi-year agreements with AMD, Broadcom, and others. Reuters
Even so, Bernstein’s upgrades weren’t without reservations. The firm maintained its neutral stance on both stocks, trimmed its PC forecasts, and for AMD, their second-quarter revenue estimate stayed at $10.1 billion—still under the $10.5 billion consensus. Several analysts have flagged that Intel’s recent surge puts attention squarely on valuation and the risks tied to its turnaround. Both AMD and Intel now trade above Bernstein’s revised price targets, so any slip could sting.
