The numbers are blunt: from March 31 to May 8, AMD shares rose 123.76%. Nvidia gained a little over 8% in the same stretch. Intel was even more dramatic, rising more than 200% year to date.
Wall Street's old reflex that “AI chips mean Nvidia” is starting to loosen.
What AMD's Q1 report showed
AMD reported first-quarter 2026 results on May 5. The stock jumped 15.34% after hours to $409.77, then kept climbing for the rest of the week. By the May 8 close it was at $455.19, already above two analysts' price targets.
The key figures were straightforward:
- Revenue: $10.25 billion, up 38% year on year.
- Data center revenue: $5.8 billion, up 57%.
- Client and gaming revenue: $3.6 billion, up 23%.
- Embedded revenue: $873 million, up 6%.
- Adjusted EPS: $1.37, above the $1.29 estimate.
- Free cash flow: $2.6 billion, triple the year-earlier level.
- Q2 guidance: about $11.2 billion in revenue and 56% gross margin.
CEO Lisa Su said AMD had delivered an excellent first quarter and that data center had become the main driver of revenue and profit growth.
The bigger surprise was her longer-term view: AMD raised its expected annual growth rate for data center AI revenue from 18% to more than 80%. After that, Goldman Sachs and other firms lifted their targets, with some moving above $450.
The Nvidia-only trade is weakening
The interesting part is not just AMD's rally. It is Wall Street reallocating exposure across the AI compute stack.
Bank of America estimates that the data center CPU market could grow from $27 billion in 2025 to $60 billion in 2030. The logic is simple: as AI moves from chatbots to agents, those agents need CPU-heavy inference, orchestration and system work. It is not all Nvidia GPUs.
The year-to-date picture now looks different:
| Stock | 2026 move |
|---|---|
| Intel | 200%+ |
| AMD | 123% from March 31 to May 8 |
| Micron | Strong rally |
| Nvidia | 15%, including this week's 8% rebound |
Nvidia rising “only” 15% would have been hard to imagine during last year's hottest phase of the AI trade.
Nvidia is not finished
To be clear, Nvidia still dominates the high-end GPU market. Su herself framed AMD as a reliable alternative for data center operators that want diversification. That is modest, and accurate.
What is changing is the equation investors use: they are starting to believe that AI compute does not equal Nvidia alone.
When the customer base is concentrated among a few hyperscalers, the supply chain depends heavily on TSMC, and prices rise until customers start to complain, opportunities open for AMD, Intel and Micron.
AMD's market value is now above $650 billion. Two years ago, few would have predicted that speed of doubling.
The next Q2 and Q3 reports will matter more than the stock's short-term move. AMD's 80% growth expectation has to show up in results. A story can run on numbers for a while, but missed execution will turn the same numbers against it.
Sources: AMD Stock Explodes 15%+: AI Chip Demand Fuels Blockbuster Q1 Earnings and Bullish Outlook (TechTimes), Wall Street AI chip love moves from Nvidia to Intel, CocoLoop, AMD and Micron (CNBC), Analysts turn heads with AMD stock forecast after massive rally (TheStreet)