Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) surged in premarket trading Friday, jumping more than 14% and hitting a fresh intraday high after D.A. Davidson upgraded the chipmaker to a Buy from Neutral and lifted its price target to $375 from $220. The upgrade came amid a broader semiconductor rally sparked by stronger-than-expected Intel results, which underscored the renewed importance of central processing units (CPUs) as AI workloads evolve.
Intel’s earnings highlighted how CPUs remain central to emerging “agentic” AI—bots and agents that act on users’ behalf—pushing compute demand beyond GPUs. AMD, a leading CPU and chip designer and Intel rival, stands to benefit from that shifting demand even as it competes directly with Intel. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria framed Intel’s performance as a potential harbinger for AMD’s CPU business, writing that “CPU is reinserting itself as an indispensable foundation of the AI era… We view Intel’s results as a precursor for a huge step-up for AMD’s CPU franchise.”
At press time, AMD was trading around $347 per share.
Momentum has been intense: AMD stock has climbed roughly 69% over the past month and about 195% over the last year, driven by strong AI-related demand and a string of strategic moves. Among those is a new multi-year collaboration with the French government to support France’s national AI strategy by embedding AMD processors and accelerators into AI applications.
Looking ahead, AMD has several catalysts investors are watching. The company plans to launch its Helios AI rack—built around its latest chips and aimed at large-scale AI workloads—in the latter half of 2026. CEO Lisa Su also said AMD could start generating revenue from its MI450 accelerator as early as the third quarter, with wider ramping to follow. Those product rollouts, coupled with robust earnings, are part of what’s driven the stock’s rebound this year.
Why crypto traders should care: momentum in AI compute and the resulting demand for cutting-edge chips can move broader tech and risk-on markets that crypto often tracks. As AI workloads reshape compute needs, winners in the semiconductor space—like AMD—may see outsized gains that ripple across technology and digital-asset investor sentiment.
What to watch next: continued data-center uptake, updates on Helios and the MI450 rollout, Intel’s subsequent results, and whether the broader AI-driven demand sustains semiconductor sector momentum.
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