New York, May 20, 2026, 14:08 (EDT)
Advanced Micro Devices shares were up in heavy afternoon trade in New York Wednesday. The stock bounced back with other chip names as investors shrugged off Tuesday’s pullback and turned their attention back to AI server demand.
AMD traded at $444.24, up $30.19, or roughly 7.3%, from Tuesday’s close after reaching an intraday high of $448.72. Around 23.5 million shares changed hands.
Nvidia’s quarterly results were set to steer the AI trade after the bell. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index added 2.9%, per Reuters. Nvidia shares rose about 2%. Intel jumped more than 6% earlier in the day. Investors wanted to see if spending on AI infrastructure can keep up with high chip prices. “The market needed ‘some reassurance’ from Nvidia’s report,” said James Demmert, chief investment officer at Main Street Research. Reuters
AMD got more attention after analysts boosted their targets on the stock. Investing.com said Evercore ISI moved its AMD view up to $579 from $358 on May 19. Citi also increased its target to $460 from $358, and Melius Research is now at $540 after lifting its target from $500. Evercore’s Mark Lipacis described this as a “CPU Renaissance,” talking about the main server chips that do most of the computing. Investing.com
Betting on GPUs isn’t the whole story. Analysts now see gains in CPUs, networking and memory as AI inference grows. Running trained AI models for users, not just training them, is driving demand. “Server CPU demand continues to outpace supply,” RBC Capital’s Srini Pajjuri told Investing.com.
AMD is again battling Intel in a market the companies have fought over for years, with Nvidia still out front in the broad AI chip race. Intel shares were recently up $6.62 at $117.42. Nvidia was up $3.69 at $224.30.
AMD posted a stronger first-quarter update earlier this month. Revenue jumped 38% year over year to $10.3 billion, with adjusted diluted EPS up at $1.37. Data Center sales climbed 57% to $5.8 billion, now AMD’s main growth driver. The segment got a lift from demand for EPYC server chips and Instinct AI GPUs.
AMD CEO Lisa Su said “accelerating demand for AI infrastructure” pushed results for the quarter. The company set its second-quarter revenue outlook around $11.2 billion, give or take $300 million, and said adjusted gross margin should be about 56%. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Reuters said after AMD’s results that CEO Lisa Su sees the server CPU market growing over 35% a year, topping $120 billion by 2030. Jake Behan at Direxion said AMD’s quarter proves AI demand is “real,” but said the main question for investors is what share will turn into high-margin revenue. Reuters
AMD shares pulled back Tuesday, with traders booking profits after a sharp climb. Investing.com said the stock dropped up to 5.7% in morning deals, hitting $397.20. That follows a rally to a record $469.22 on May 11.
But risk is hard to ignore. Reuters said Intel’s better production could put heat on AMD in CPUs. AMD depends on outside chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for supply. High-bandwidth memory is in short supply worldwide, driving up costs and possibly hitting demand for consumer electronics, including PCs. Daniel Newman, Futurum Group CEO, said AMD may need “precious additional capacity.” Reuters
AMD got a bid Wednesday as traders looked for AI names ahead of Nvidia’s report. Whether that holds up will depend on Nvidia’s outlook after the bell, which could either give the chip space new fuel or leave it feeling crowded again.
