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AMD's Supercomputing Gains Fuel AI Data Center Growth: What's Ahead?

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Key Takeaways

  • AMD powers 191 TOP500 systems, including four of the world's 10 fastest supercomputers.
  • Data center revenues rose 57% in Q1, fueled by strong EPYC and Instinct product sales.
  • AMD shares have jumped 142.7% year to date, beating the tech sector's 15% gain.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) EPYC CPUs and Instinct GPUs now power four of the world's 10 fastest supercomputers and four of the 10 most energy-efficient systems, underscoring its growing presence in high-performance computing (HPC). The company powers 191 systems on the latest TOP500 list, up 11% year over year, while 41% of the newly added systems use AMD technology. 

The achievement aligns with AMD's accelerating data center momentum, which management believes will underpin the company's next phase of AI-driven growth. AI is driving demand not only for AMD’s GPUs but also for high-performance CPUs that orchestrate inference and emerging agentic AI workloads. CEO Lisa Su noted that first-quarter data center revenues surged 57% year over year, fueled by strong EPYC and Instinct sales, while server CPU revenues climbed more than 50%. 

AMD expects server CPU revenues to grow more than 70% in the second quarter, supported by rising adoption of EPYC processors. AMD is on track to launch sixth-gen EPYC Venice later in 2026, with more customers validating platforms than prior generations. Management also raised its view of the server CPU market to greater than 35% annual growth, reaching over $120 billion by 2030. 

At the same time, expanding deployments of Instinct GPUs and Helios rack-scale systems position AMD to capitalize on large-scale AI infrastructure investments and drive long-term data center growth. Meta plans to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs, with the first 1-gigawatt deployment powered by a custom MI450-based GPU. AMD management continues to target scaling data center AI revenues to tens of billions annually in 2027.

Tough Competition Hurts AMD’s Prospects

AMD’s prospects suffer from stiff competition. NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) and Broadcom (AVGO - Free Report) are major competitors in the Data Center space. 

NVIDIA is at the center of AI computing, with its products widely used across data centers, gaming and autonomous vehicles. The company’s newer Hopper 200 and Blackwell GPU platforms are being adopted quickly as customers work to grow their AI infrastructure. Data Center revenues reached $75.2 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, up 92% from a year ago and up 21% sequentially, driven by the ramp-up of Blackwell 300 products and demand for InfiniBand, Spectrum-X Ethernet and NVLink solutions. NVIDIA remains AMD's primary rival in GPU-accelerated supercomputing.

Broadcom is benefiting from strong demand for its networking products and custom AI accelerators. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, AI semiconductor revenues reached a record $10.8 billion, up 143% year over year and above management’s outlook. Broadcom expects AI semiconductor revenue to reach $16 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up more than 200% year over year. For fiscal 2026, management expects AI semiconductor revenue of $56 billion, up approximately 180% from fiscal 2025. Broadcom also reiterated that AI semiconductor revenue is expected to exceed $100 billion in fiscal 2027.

AMD’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

AMD shares have jumped 142.7% year to date, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s rise of 15%.

AMD Stock’s Price Performance

 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

 

AMD stock is overvalued, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 14.3X compared with the broader sector’s 6.46X. AMD has a Value Score of F.

AMD's Valuation

 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $1.60 per share, unchanged over the past 30 days, suggesting 233.3% year-over-year growth.
 

 

AMD currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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