Intel wasn’t the only winner of its blockbuster earnings report. Rivals in the artificial-intelligence chip game, including Advanced Micro Devices and Arm Holdings, also got a boost.
AMD stock jumped 12% to $340.46 in premarket trading Friday—a staggering gain for a company that didn’t have any news of its own. Arm, meanwhile, rose 8.5%, to $222.05
Shareholders can thank Intel, which reported first-quarter revenue and earnings that blew analysts’ expectations out of the water. The stock soared 28%.
The earnings print was a positive sign for the “once sleepy” central processing unit, or CPU, market, according to D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria. The firm upgraded AMD stock to Buy from Neutral and pushed its price target to $375 from $220 in a research note Friday.
As AI workloads shift away from training large-language models and toward AI agents using models to execute tasks—the industry calls this “inference”—CPUs have become a critical tool. AMD is Intel’s main competitor in the CPU business. Arm, best known as a designer of chips for other companies, announced plans last month to make its own CPU.
“We view Intel’s results as a precursor for a huge step-up for AMD’s CPU franchise and believe the structural shift toward [agentic] AI workloads is creating unprecedented demand for server CPUs,” Luria wrote.
With demand for CPUs likely to outstrip supply in the foreseeable future, AMD can boost prices across its portfolio and widen profit margins, he added.
Even with Intel leading the headlines, AMD may still have a case as the best CPU play for investors. In a research note Friday boosting its price target for Intel, Jefferies remained most excited about AMD, which it believes is taking share from Intel.
“INTC noted double-digit server unit growth with momentum extending into 2027 but AMD likely sees even better growth,” the Jefferies team wrote, noting the much-anticipated arrival of AMD’s new Venice chips late this year or early next.
The firm has a Buy rating and a $300 target on AMD shares. It kept Intel at a Hold.
