By John Ballard, The Motley Fool
Publication Date: 2026-05-13 09:42:00
Surging demand for semiconductors has sent Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) to fresh highs in May. The stock is currently up 115% year to date, leaving other top artificial intelligence (AI) stocks in the dust, including Palantir (down 24%), Nvidia (up 18%), and Alphabet (up 25%).
AMD recently reported strong first-quarter earnings results, fueling the stock’s breakout run. Here’s what’s driving AMD’s stunning performance.
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Accelerating data center demand
Advanced AI workloads require more than just powerful graphics processing units (GPUs). The demand is spreading to many different chips and components, especially central processing units (CPUs), which are a core part of AMD’s chip portfolio.
That shift helped drive revenue up 38% year over year to $10.3 billion last quarter. Data center now makes up the majority of AMD’s business, with segment revenue up 57% to a record $5.8 billion.
AMD’s quarter shows chip demand isn’t slowing down — it’s accelerating. Companies are buying AMD’s EPYC CPUs to support real-time decision-making through AI inference and agentic systems that run autonomously. CPUs are being used for orchestration, data transmission, and other tasks alongside GPUs. AMD now sees…
