Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
AMD used its Technology Leadership Forum 2026 to outline an acceleration in its data center strategy. Management pointed to AI inference and agentic computing as major growth drivers.
The company also detailed Helios customer commitments, its expanding server CPU roadmap, software improvements and efforts to secure additional supply.
Server And AI Growth Outlook Accelerates
AMD Corporate Vice President of Financial Strategy and Investor Relations Matt Ramsay said the company's server business grew more than 50% in the first quarter and more than 70% in the second quarter. Both cloud and enterprise revenue increased more than 70%.
AMD expects server revenue growth to exceed 80% in the second half of 2026. The company also provided an early outlook for at least 70% growth in 2027.
AMD expects its broader data center business, including AI, to grow well above 100% in 2027.
Ramsay said AMD's early 2027 server revenue outlook is roughly 20% larger than the entire server market was in 2025, underscoring the scale of the company's expected growth.
The company raised its estimate for the server CPU market to $220 billion by 2030 and continues to target more than 50% revenue share. Ramsay said agentic computing could account for roughly two-thirds of the market as AI spending increasingly shifts from training to inference.
Helios Anchors AMD's AI Expansion
AMD plans to begin shipping components for its Helios AI racks to manufacturing partners in September. Those components include MI450 accelerators, Venice CPUs and Pensando networking products.
Management expects a significant revenue ramp in the fourth quarter, followed by another increase in the first quarter.
Customer commitments provide AMD with visibility into that expansion. The company has secured 1-gigawatt commitments from OpenAI and Meta Platforms, Inc.
AMD also expects deployments through Oracle Corporation
Ramsay said customer demand remains strong, although deployment speeds will also depend on the availability of land, power, infrastructure and capital.
ZT Systems Supports Rack-Scale Push
AMD acquired ZT Systems to add system-level expertise as it expands beyond individual chips into complete rack-scale AI systems. Ramsay said ZT Systems has helped strengthen the Helios design and reduce execution risks.
AMD plans to begin the Helios ramp with a limited number of manufacturing partners before expanding more broadly.
Ramsay said AMD has moved beyond major design concerns. The focus has shifted to producing working racks at scale and helping customers quickly move production workloads onto the systems.
AMD Says ROCm Is Closing The Software Gap
AMD also highlighted progress with ROCm, its AI software platform, as it competes with NVIDIA Corporation's
Ramsay said improvements over the past 18 months have reduced friction for large customers. He said the competitive gap has narrowed enough that software is no longer a central concern in discussions with leading AI companies.
AMD plans to launch ROCm AI alongside Helios and continue updating the platform with future accelerator generations.
Venice Expands AMD's CPU Roadmap
AMD is sampling its next-generation Venice server CPUs to customers and plans to use them in both Helios systems and its broader server portfolio.
Venice scales to 256 cores and 512 threads and targets workloads ranging from traditional cloud computing to AI infrastructure and agentic systems.
AMD plans to follow Venice with its Florence CPU family in 2028. Ravenna is also under development with customer involvement.
Ramsay said AMD's chiplet-based approach allows the company to develop different server configurations more quickly for a wider range of workloads.
AMD Targets x86 And Arm Rivals
AMD sees competition from both its traditional x86 rival and processors based on technology from Arm Holdings plc
Ramsay said AMD does not frame its strategy around the x86-versus-Arm debate. Instead, the company focuses on building the best processor for each workload.
He said AMD has increased its share of the x86 server market from 0.4% to the high-40% range. The company believes its experience in security, reliability and enterprise workloads will strengthen its position as agentic computing expands.
For agentic systems, Ramsay said customers are increasingly focused on metrics such as agents or computing threads per megawatt rather than the underlying instruction set.
Supply Remains The Key Constraint
AMD said demand is not its biggest near-term challenge. Instead, the company is focused on securing enough manufacturing and advanced packaging capacity to meet expected growth.
AMD continues to work with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd.
The company is working with server manufacturers, cloud companies and other partners to secure sufficient memory supply.
Ramsay said AMD continues to pursue additional near-term capacity. Longer planning horizons should also give AMD and its suppliers greater flexibility to support expected growth in 2027 and 2028.
Price Action
AMD Price Action: Advanced Micro Devices shares were down 0.44% at $480.80 during premarket trading on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
