--- title: "AMD, with a $700 Billion Market Cap, the New King of Data Centers" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/286765814.md" description: "AMD achieved revenue of $10.25 billion in the first quarter of 2026, with data center business revenue rising to $5.775 billion, marking its transformation into the AI era. Over the past year, AMD's stock price surged from $106.98 to $469.22, pushing its market capitalization above $700 billion. Analysts have raised their target price to $525, demonstrating strong confidence in AMD's future" datetime: "2026-05-18T11:50:04.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/286765814.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286765814.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/286765814.md) --- # AMD, with a $700 Billion Market Cap, the New King of Data Centers "Lisa Su" is shaping an AMD for the AI era. It is now inaccurate to describe AMD solely as a hardware company. When AMD released its financial report for the first quarter of 2026, it essentially declared the completion of its thorough transformation from a chip manufacturer to a "computing power arms dealer" in the AI era. In the first fiscal quarter of fiscal year 2026, AMD achieved revenue of $10.25 billion, with its data center business further increasing to $5.775 billion from $5.38 billion in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2025. It must be clarified that this is a very critical milestone. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, NVIDIA was at a similar inflection point, after which its data center revenue began to skyrocket, initiating a path of quarterly sequential growth reaching billions of dollars. Wall Street detected the scent of AMD's transformation early on. Over the past 52 weeks, AMD's stock price soared from a low of approximately $106.98 to a high of $469.22 within the last year. In just the past 30 days, the stock price has risen by more than 80%, pushing its market capitalization above $700 billion. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon upgraded AMD to "Outperform," doubling the target price directly from $265 to $525; JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur also pointed out that AMD's forecasts point to a "multi-year CPU revenue trajectory far higher than previously expected." The data is cold, but investor enthusiasm is hot. However, the three underlying structural signals are clear: the King of CPUs, the shift in the GPU-to-CPU ratio from 8:1 to 1:1, and the dual-engine strategy of GPU+CPU. This is the most significant "assignment" that Lisa Su, who has served as CEO for nearly 12 years, has submitted to the company's board of directors and Wall Street. ## 01 The New King of Data Centers For decades, Intel held absolute dominance in the data center CPU market. It was not until 2017 that AMD emerged as a challenger, launching its first-generation data center brand, EPYC (known in Chinese as "Xiaolong"), with the flagship product being the AMD EPYC 7601. Over the next nearly 10 years, AMD continued to catch up. **In the most recent fiscal quarter, AMD's data center revenue reached $5.775 billion, consistently surpassing and widening the gap with Intel on the books, whose data center revenue for the quarter was $5.1 billion.** In fact, signs of this overtaking were evident in the previous two quarters: in the third quarter of 2025, Intel's data center revenue for the quarter was $4.1 billion, while AMD's was $4.3 billion for the same period. Digitimes emphasized not only that this was the first time AMD had significantly surpassed Intel in data center revenue in the first quarter, but also that the signal released by this trend could mark the beginning of AMD's long-term dominance, representing a historic turning point in the x86 server market landscape, a position that Intel may find difficult to shake for some time. Many people refer to AMD as the "King of CPUs," but it is more accurate to call it the "King of Data Centers." In Mercury Research's study report for the first quarter of 2026, **AMD captured a record 46.2% of server market revenue**, compared to 39.5% in the same period of 2025. Rather than looking at market revenue share alone, I prefer to combine it with shipment share—Mercury Research's report also mentioned another figure: in Q1 2026, AMD's shipment share in the data center CPU market was 33.2%. **A 33.2% shipment share corresponding to a 46.2% market revenue share is a matter of market share efficiency.** Bank of America Securities pointed out in a May 2026 report that AMD is poised to capture approximately 50% of the server CPU market share. Based on simple proportional calculation, AMD could potentially capture 70% of the revenue share in the server CPU market in the future. What helps it become the "King of Data Centers" is its more flexible Chiplet architecture, a more stable roadmap, and advantages in single-core performance, energy efficiency, and total cost of ownership (TCO). AMD had previously set a goal to improve the energy efficiency of AI training and high-performance computing (HPC) server processors/accelerators by 30 times between 2020 and 2025. In June 2025, AMD disclosed data showing that its **combined configuration of fifth-generation AMD EPYC CPUs and Instinct GPUs successfully achieved a 38-fold improvement in energy efficiency compared to the 2020 baseline system**. This means that when performing the same amount of computation, AMD's product portfolio reduces energy consumption by up to 97%. At the same time, AMD proposed that by 2030, typical AI models that currently require more than 275 racks for training will only need one rack, while also reducing electricity consumption by 95%, and carbon emissions will drop from approximately 3,000 metric tons to 100 metric tons. **Lower total cost of ownership corresponds to higher adoption rates.** AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure have all announced new and expanded fifth-generation EPYC cloud instances, including Google Cloud H4D virtual machines and Azure cross-workload optimized instances. Oracle announced that it will deploy the first batch of 50,000 MI450 GPUs in the third quarter of 2026, becoming the world's first publicly available hyperscale AMD computing cluster. With widespread customer adoption, the only thing that might stop AMD is production capacity. At the Morgan Stanley conference in March, when asked whether CoWoS packaging capacity was sufficient, Lisa Su replied, "We absolutely have enough CoWoS capacity. The best answer I can give you is that we have capacity, technology, deep customer relationships, and data center service providers have already allocated space for this." ## 02 CPUs Take Center Stage At the "Advancing AI" event in June 2025, Lisa Su foresaw the explosive growth in inference demand. At that time, however, CPU demand was still overshadowed by the halo of GPU and ASIC chip inference performance. As Agent products like Openclaw exploded since the beginning of the year, Lisa Su also updated her views on the CPU narrative. She said at the Morgan Stanley conference in March, "Even hyperscale cloud providers were surprised. The CPU computing demand accompanying AI might be a severely underestimated variable." **The highlight of AMD's performance this quarter lies not only in the growth of financial figures but also in the growth potential behind management's judgment of market trends.** During the conference call for the first fiscal quarter, Lisa Su said, "In the past, the ratio of CPUs to GPUs was basically a head-node configuration of 1:4 or 1:8. Now, this ratio is moving closer to 1:1." The change in quantity essentially reflects that AI computing infrastructure is bidding farewell to the single "accelerator mode" and entering the "balanced computing era." Goldman Sachs analyzed in its latest research brief that the essence of Agents is "action" rather than "prediction." This **shift in focus from vector computing to logical reasoning has directly led to a structural return of computing loads to the CPU side**. What changed this narrative logic was precisely the explosion of Agents. In the past, the standard configuration for a data center was 1 CPU corresponding to 4 to 8 GPUs, with the CPU acting merely as the "gatekeeper" responsible for scheduling and management. This remained the case from ChatGPT to large model training. After the emergence of Agents, AI assistants shifted from "answering questions" to "autonomously completing tasks," requiring continuous step planning, tool invocation, result checking, and replanning. These intensive logical judgments and task orchestrations must rely on CPUs. Agent inference demand is an objective factor. Under the shadow of the GPU narrative, Wall Street also needed a new story. Bank of America's research report predicts that the global data center CPU market size will soar from $27 billion in 2025 to $110 billion in 2030. **AMD management even aggressively doubled the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) target for the total addressable market of server CPUs in 2030 from 18% to over 35% during the first quarter conference call, pointing directly to $120 billion**. Evercore ISI proposed a concept—the "CPU Renaissance." Recently, there have been many similar topics, which essentially mean that CPUs are returning to center stage. As ratios change and market sizes expand, AMD, having just become the King of Data Centers and possessing a lower total cost of ownership, is about to enter its best period. ## 03 Dual-Engine Acceleration The rapid growth in CPU demand is gradually pushing AMD toward a trillion-dollar market valuation. However, even as demand ratios adjust, CPU growth does not mean replacing GPUs. In AMD's system, they are more like two engines accelerating simultaneously. During the executive interpretation of the financial results, Lisa Su also clarified the view of dual drivers, stating, "Strong demand for EPYC server CPUs and shipments of Instinct GPUs will continue to climb." Both CPU and GPU businesses are showing accelerated growth momentum. This growth trend is rare in the semiconductor cycle, representing that AMD no longer relies solely on the performance of individual chips to compete in the market. Instead, it provides system-level solutions through a combination of CPUs and GPUs, transforming from a single computing power supplier to a full-stack computing solution provider, thereby optimizing the total cost of ownership for computing customers. The deep cooperation with Meta is a sample of this strategy. In February 2026, the agreement signed between Meta and AMD was not a simple GPU purchase agreement, but bundled orders for 6 gigawatts of Instinct MI450 GPUs with sixth-generation EPYC server CPUs. Meta's choice of this deeply bundled solution was primarily driven by the need for "end-to-end" optimization for the trillion-parameter Llama 4 and its subsequent Agent clusters. **The CPU+GPU bundled solution can effectively reduce system-level instruction latency**. For example, based on Infinity Fabric interconnect technology, it breaks the traditional architecture's "memory wall" problem, achieving seamless, ultra-low latency data exchange and unified memory sharing between EPYC processors and Instinct accelerators. Lisa Su explained this during the conference call: "We design chips starting from actual workloads." AMD achieved customized development from the underlying architecture to the system level based on the operational characteristics of the Llama model. At the same time, Goldman Sachs pointed out in its research report that **the "CPU+GPU" package not only increases the value of single orders but also creates deep architectural binding**, making it difficult for cloud providers to switch to other solutions after adoption. This trend was also reflected in the contract with OpenAI for 6GW of GPU computing power: the deployment plan for CPUs was synchronously included in its GPU supply agreement. "Customers are already synchronously planning the deployment of CPUs and accelerators, which is a key market signal," Lisa Su said. Financial data confirms the correctness of the logic. Server CPU revenue in the first quarter increased by more than 50% year-over-year, and the guidance for the second quarter was revised upward to growth of over 70%. Meanwhile, the Instinct GPU series is in the ramp-up phase of shipments, and the MI450 will enter mass production in the second half of the year. The two engines are synergistically amplifying the growth space for AMD's data center business. In the past, NVLink and CUDA built a closed ecosystem, while AMD has always adhered to an open philosophy. **In the new track defined by Agents, AMD attempts to leverage its existing advantages in the CPU market, combined with its GPU platform portfolio, to output a more universal "dual-engine standard" that is difficult to replicate in the short term, prying open NVIDIA's closed door.** Taking UALink as an example, as an open interconnect standard jointly promoted by AMD and global industry partners, it has already attracted more than 70 members worldwide, including several Chinese companies. Therefore, if one asks what the difference is between AMD and NVIDIA, this may be a concrete manifestation of that difference. ## 04 Lisa Su's Second Half With the three stories of being the King of Data Centers, the rise of CPUs, and the GPU+CPU dual engines, Wall Street and investors have given AMD a high score with a $700 billion market cap, which is also positive feedback on Lisa Su's nearly 12-year tenure as CEO. In a recent interview, when faced with questions about the "glass cliff," she said, "When I took over, the outside world was generally pessimistic, believing that AMD was on the verge of collapse. But I saw a company with a great engineering heritage, just with unstable execution. I didn't see it as a trap, but as my dream job." If thoroughly integrating AMD into the AI era was the goal of the first half, then **the goal of the second half should be the explosive growth in performance after the transformation, with the nearest milestone reflected in market capitalization being one trillion dollars**. At the Financial Analyst Day in November 2025, Lisa Su said: "Annual growth exceeding 60% in the next three to five years, pushing annual data center revenue to $100 billion, and achieving annual earnings per share exceeding $20 within the strategic time frame." Based on this quarter's $5.77 billion, AMD's data center annualized revenue is approximately $23 billion. To reach $100 billion in five years, this figure needs to more than quadruple. Supporting these goals is a product chain with no room for error: from EPYC Venice and MI450, to the Helios rack system, and finally to the ROCm ecosystem. Regarding ROCm, there is an interesting reversal. In December 2024, SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel published a report pointing out numerous vulnerabilities in AMD's ROCm software stack. Less than 24 hours after the report was released, Lisa Su personally contacted Patel. At 7 a.m. the next morning, she sat there listening to the SemiAnalysis engineering team report on every bug and improvement suggestion one by one for a full 90 minutes. It was precisely because of this attitude that SemiAnalysis rewrote the article in April 2025, flipping the conclusion from "failed to become an effective competitor" to "AMD has entered wartime mode, and the MI450X is expected to directly confront NVIDIA in the second half of 2026." Lisa Su also invited OpenAI President Greg Brockman, the CEO of Luma AI, the CEO of Liquid AI, and AI godmother Fei-Fei Li onto the CES stage. Wherever computing power flows, Lisa Su invites the people from there onto the stage. Source: Tencent Technology Risk Warning and Disclaimer The market carries risks, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take into account the specific investment objectives, financial status, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their specific circumstances. Investment based on this content is at the user's own risk. ### Related Stocks - [AMD.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMD.US.md) - [SOXQ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SOXQ.US.md) - [SMH.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SMH.US.md) - [IGPT.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/IGPT.US.md) - [SOXX.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SOXX.US.md) - [AMUU.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMUU.US.md) - [SOXL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SOXL.US.md) - [AMDL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMDL.US.md) - [NVDA.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NVDA.US.md) - [AB.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AB.US.md) - [JPM.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM.US.md) - [INTC.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/INTC.US.md) - [BAC.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC.US.md) - [AMZN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMZN.US.md) - [GOOGL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GOOGL.US.md) - [GOOG.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GOOG.US.md) - [MSFT.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MSFT.US.md) - [ORCL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ORCL.US.md) - [MS.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS.US.md) - [GS.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GS.US.md) - [OpenAI.NA](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/OpenAI.NA.md) - [EVR.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/EVR.US.md) - [META.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/META.US.md) - [NVD.DE](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NVD.DE.md) - [JPM-M.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-M.US.md) - [JPM-C.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-C.US.md) - [JPM-D.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-D.US.md) - [JPM-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-L.US.md) - [8634.JP](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/8634.JP.md) - [JPM-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-K.US.md) - [JPM-J.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JPM-J.US.md) - [BAC-Q.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-Q.US.md) - [BML-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-L.US.md) - [BAC-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-L.US.md) - [BAC-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-K.US.md) - [BML-H.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-H.US.md) - [BAC-N.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-N.US.md) - [BAC-E.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-E.US.md) - [MER-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MER-K.US.md) - [BAC-O.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-O.US.md) - [BML-G.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-G.US.md) - [BAC-M.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-M.US.md) - [BAC-B.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-B.US.md) - [BML-J.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-J.US.md) - [BAC-S.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-S.US.md) - [BAC-P.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-P.US.md) - [8648.JP](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/8648.JP.md) - [ORCL-D.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ORCL-D.US.md) - [MS-O.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-O.US.md) - [MS-Q.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-Q.US.md) - [MS-E.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-E.US.md) - [MS-I.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-I.US.md) - [MS-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-L.US.md) - [MS-P.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-P.US.md) - [MS-A.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-A.US.md) - [MS-F.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-F.US.md) - [MS-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-K.US.md) - [W4VR.SG](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/W4VR.SG.md) ## Related News & Research - [AMD set to benefit from agentic AI CPU demand surge](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286655054.md) - [BUZZ-Citigroup sees server CPU market reaching $132 billion by 2030, Intel to lead](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286771641.md) - [Intel Is Supposed to Be in a New CPU Era But Its Losing Market Share to AMD and Arm](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286646639.md) - [Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. $AMD Shares Acquired by WealthPlan Investment Management LLC](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286762044.md) - [Ark Invest Again Sells AMD, This Time As Stock Hits 52-Week High While Snapping Up Tempus AI And Circle](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286033572.md)