AMD Forecasts $17 Billion Quarter as Data Centre Sales Nearly Double

Revenue for the quarter was $13.38 billion, up from $9.25 billion a year earlier, against the $13.09 billion analysts expected, according to LSEG consensus figures cited by CNBC. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.09, compared with an expected $1.95.

For the fourth quarter, AMD expects revenue of about $17 billion. The average analyst estimate compiled by LSEG was $16.2 billion. AMD put fourth-quarter gross margin at 55%, slightly below the 55.3% average estimate reported by StreetAccount. Bloomberg said the forecast shows that demand for data centre processors remains strong.

Data Centre Now Two Thirds of Sales

The data centre unit made up 64% of AMD's revenue in the quarter, up from 47% a year earlier. Chief executive Lisa Su said in the results release that she expects growth in data centre processors to "accelerate further" and that supply will not hold the company back. "With our leadership product portfolio and deep customer and supply chain relationships, we are confident in our ability to sustain very strong revenue growth and expanding profitability over the coming years," Su said.

AMD has spent years trying to catch Nvidia in AI graphics processors. CNBC said its server central processors are now in strong demand because of agentic AI applications, which run on virtual machines and can work for hours without supervision. That demand took AMD's shares to a record in October. The stock is up about 125% this year, although it fell for three straight days before Tuesday's rally as investors across the sector worried about AI overspending.

AMD also sells data centre GPUs and complete rack-scale systems called Helios, which compete with Nvidia's Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin. According to CNBC, Meta, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI and Oracle are all starting to use Helios. Meta said last week that its Helios racks were running, and AMD agreed to invest $1 billion in Meta's equity offering. AMD has also committed to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic, which published its IPO prospectus last week.

PC Weakness Persists

The results came days after Intel reported a 78% rise in data centre revenue for the third quarter. Intel's shares still fell 29% on Friday on concerns about weak guidance and whether it can meet demand. Intel blamed a soft PC market for its outlook, and AMD is exposed to the same trend. AMD's combined PC and gaming segment fell 8% year on year to $3.7 billion, and gaming revenue was down 40%. Counterpoint Research says global PC shipments fell 4% in the second quarter as memory and other component costs rose.

Supply is the main constraint across the AI chip industry. During a visit to Taiwan in October, Su said AMD plans to "substantially increase our supply in 2027." She and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang have both made several trips this year to suppliers in Taiwan and South Korea, including TSMC, SK Hynix and Samsung. In September AMD agreed to buy World Labs, the world-model start-up founded by Fei-Fei Li, for $8.2 billion in stock.

For buyers of AI infrastructure, including the Gulf operators building large compute campuses, AMD's numbers show that a second supplier of accelerators and server processors is reaching meaningful scale. That matters at a time when Nvidia hardware is scarce and expensive.