AMD Stock Climbs After Management Lifts 2027 Data Center Outlook Toward $70 Billion in AI Sales

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Advanced Micro Devices shares rose Wednesday after management told a Citi conference that data-center sales could reach about $70 billion in 2027 — roughly double this year's expected run — and that the addressable AI market could hit $2 trillion by 2030.

The stock traded at $519.03 around 11:12 a.m. Eastern, up $13.29, or 2.63%, extending a Tuesday jump of nearly 6% after the same remarks. CLSA lifted its price target to $710 from $575 and kept an Outperform rating, raising 2027 and 2028 earnings estimates by 25% to 29% on higher MI-series GPU volume and price assumptions.

The $70 billion figure is the number the tape heard. AI GPUs are expected to contribute sales in the low $40 billions next year, with server CPUs making up the rest. Server CPU revenue is projected to grow more than 80% year over year in the second half of 2026 and more than 70% in 2027. Management also raised its 2030 server-CPU market view to $220 billion from earlier, much smaller, estimates. Inference, not training, is now "the majority driver of AI computing," according to Citi's summary of the session, as workloads move from chatbots toward agentic systems that need more CPUs beside the accelerators.

That mix is already visible in the last reported quarter. On Aug. 4 AMD posted second-quarter revenue of $11.54 billion, up 50% from a year earlier. Non-GAAP earnings were $1.66 a share. Data-center sales were $6.7 billion, up 107%, and 58% of the company, versus about 42% a year earlier. EPYC CPU sales rose about 70%. Gaming revenue fell 31% to $779 million.

"We delivered an excellent quarter, with record revenue and profitability as Data Center revenue more than doubled year-over-year," Chair and CEO Lisa Su said in the release. "We enter the second half with strong momentum as EPYC demand accelerates, Instinct deployments scale and Helios begins to ramp." Third-quarter guidance was about $13 billion, plus or minus $300 million, implying 41% year-over-year growth at the midpoint and 56% non-GAAP gross margin.

Helios, the rack-scale stack of Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and Pensando networking, is the product the 2027 number rides on. MI450 production shipments started in the third quarter, with a larger ramp in the fourth quarter and into early 2027. Su said on the earnings call that AMD would launch "a new rackscale AI platform every year." For 2027 that means MI500 GPUs, Verona CPUs and both copper and optical interconnects. Customer work on MI500 is "very strong," she said, and the company expects the largest generational leap in Instinct history.

The customer list is no longer a single logo. OpenAI committed to multi-gigawatt Instinct deployments, a deal AMD has described as more than $100 billion of potential revenue over years, with equity-linked warrants. Meta's expanded pact covers up to 6 gigawatts of custom GPUs and CPUs, also with a performance warrant of up to 160 million AMD shares that vest as shipments and the stock price climb, the last tranche at $600. Anthropic agreed to deploy up to 2 gigawatts of MI450-class GPUs in Helios, first gigawatt in the first half of 2027. Microsoft will put Helios on Azure for inference. AMD said it has locked $29 billion to $30 billion of purchase commitments. Lead customers have raised forecasts above their original 2027 plans. Neo-cloud buyers are appearing behind them.

Constraints are the other half of the story. Advanced wafers, high-bandwidth memory and packaging are tight. That is why a $519 stock can still sell off on a beat, as it did after the August print when guidance looked rich to bulls and thin to people who wanted an even steeper second half. Gaming is a drag: Su said higher component costs "weighed on overall demand" for graphics cards. Client PCs are only a partial offset.

The valuation assumes the $70 billion lands. AMD is tracking "materially ahead" of the November analyst-day model that called for more than 35% revenue growth and $20 of annual EPS in the strategic window; management now says it will beat both. A $850 billion-plus market cap at midweek prices pays for a second source to Nvidia that actually ships racks, not slides. If MI450 yields slip, if HBM stays rationed, or if OpenAI and Meta digest capacity, the multiple compresses. Warrants dilute if the stock keeps rising. Nvidia still owns training mindshare.

Wednesday's 3% is the market marking the Citi slides, not a new quarter. Su's job from here is to turn $13 billion of guided sales this quarter into a visible Helios run-rate that makes $40 billion-plus of 2027 GPU revenue look like arithmetic. The AI TAM slogan is $2 trillion. The operating slogan is racks out the door before the memory and substrate lines say no.