Intel rises, AMD slips after Nvidia’s strong forecast

After Nvidia’s quarterly report, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose about 1.7% on Thursday and shares of several chipmakers advanced. Intel shares climbed more than 3% while AMD shares fell about 1% during the same session.

Nvidia reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results and projected 70% revenue growth for fiscal 2028. The company said demand for AI computing and data-center infrastructure remains high relative to current supply.

Nvidia disclosed a roughly $5 billion investment to acquire about a 4% stake in Intel. The two companies also agreed to develop multiple future products that will connect Intel processors with Nvidia chips using Nvidia’s NVLink interconnect.

Nvidia announced an expanded collaboration with Amazon Web Services, which plans to deploy 2 million additional Nvidia GPUs across its global infrastructure. The companies will extend work on AI factories, CPUs, networking, open models, data processing and robotics. Nvidia’s chief executive indicated Amazon could also purchase ‘millions of CPUs’ alongside the GPUs.

The companies compete across overlapping markets. Nvidia leads in GPUs and AI accelerators, AMD competes with its Instinct accelerators, and Intel is the primary supplier of server CPUs. Nvidia is also developing its own CPUs under the Vera program.

Market participants noted that hyperscaler commitments to Nvidia hardware and Nvidia’s move into CPUs are factors that could affect hardware purchasing decisions by cloud providers.

AMD has promoted a rack-scale infrastructure product called Helios that combines Instinct accelerators, EPYC processors, Pensando networking and ROCm software. Reported customers and commitments include Anthropic, which has pledged up to 2 gigawatts of MI450-series GPUs for Helios systems; OpenAI and Meta, each with agreements covering up to 6 gigawatts; Microsoft, which plans Helios deployments on Azure; and Oracle, listed as a customer.

Financial firms adjusted price targets for AMD after the customer announcements. Benchmark increased its AMD target to $685 from $485. Roth MKM raised its target to $650 from $500, citing Helios’s technical attributes and a broader customer map. Market data cited by analysts show AMD holds about 33% of the server CPU market versus roughly 66.8% for Intel, with AMD gaining share in recent periods.

Market participants identified two pressures on AMD: increasing hyperscaler commitments to Nvidia hardware and rising competition from Nvidia’s CPU efforts. Traders and analysts referenced those factors during Thursday’s session.