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Can Strong Data Center Revenues Boost AMD's Topline in Q1 Earnings?

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Key Takeaways

  • AMD expects Q1 Data Center revenue growth, driven by EPYC CPUs and Instinct GPU demand.
  • Enterprise and hyperscaler adoption is rising, with over 1,600 EPYC cloud instances globally.
  • Data Center revenue is projected to be $5.56B, up 51.5% year over year on strong AI demand.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) is expected to have benefited from strong Data Center revenues in the first quarter of 2026. The company is set to release results on May 5, 2026. 

The company continues to strengthen its footprint in the enterprise data center arena by leveraging EPYC processors and Instinct accelerators amid significant competition from NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) and Broadcom (AVGO - Free Report) . Hyperscalers and enterprise customers are expanding their infrastructure to meet the growing needs of cloud services and AI workloads, making EPYC CPUs the processor of choice for modern data centers. For the first quarter of 2026, AMD expects the Data Center segment revenue to be up sequentially, even as other segments experience seasonal declines.

Click here to know how AMD’s overall first-quarter performance is likely to be.

AMD’s Data Center Revenues to Ride on Enterprise Adoption

In the enterprise, AMD’s EPYC has been gaining traction with an expanding clientele in technology, automotive, manufacturing, financial services and public sector domains. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Data Center revenues increased 39.4% year over year to $5.38 billion and accounted for 52.4% of total revenues. Sequentially, revenues climbed 23.9% year over year. Strong demand for fifth-gen EPYC processors and Instinct MI350 series GPUs drove top-line growth. 

The adoption of EPYC by the largest cloud hyperscalers has been increasing significantly. Hyperscalers launched more than 230 EPYC-powered instances in the reported quarter, including new Turin offerings from Google, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba and others. More than 1,600 public EPYC cloud instances are now available globally, up roughly 50% year over year. This broad adoption is expected to have continued into the first quarter of 2026, supported by increased supply capacity and strong customer demand.

AMD's Instinct GPU business is also expected to have contributed significantly, with the MI350 Series ramping up and broadening adoption among leading AI companies. The company anticipates approximately $100 million in MI308 GPU sales to China in the to-be-reported quarter.

AMD’s to-be-reported quarter’s Data Center results are also expected to benefit from a rich partner base that includes the likes of Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) , OpenAI, Cohere, IBM, Oracle, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, Super Micro, and others. In February 2026, AMD announced a 6-gigawatt deal with Meta Platforms that involves the MI450 series. The first deployment will see Meta Platforms’ use of custom MI450, along with 6th-generation EPYC CPUs, codenamed “Venice,” running on ROCm software and built on the AMD Helios rack-scale architecture.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter Data Center revenues is pegged at $5.56 billion, indicating impressive year-over-year growth of 51.5%.

AMD Faces Stiff Competition

NVIDIA is benefiting from the strong growth of AI and high-performance, accelerated computing. The company’s newer Hopper and Blackwell GPU platforms are being rapidly adopted as customers work to grow their AI infrastructure.  

Broadcom is benefiting from strong demand for its networking products and custom AI accelerators. Broadcom expects a positive second-quarter fiscal 2026 performance, with AI revenues expected to surge 140% year over year to $10.7 billion, driven by strong demand for custom AI accelerators. AI networking is expected to accelerate in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 and grow to 40% of total AI revenues.

Zacks Rank

AMD currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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