AI agents lift AMD as CPU demand returns

Personal AI agents are shifting more attention back to CPUs after years of GPU dominance in AI infrastructure. AMD and Intel shares rose 32% and 21% respectively over the past month as demand increased for chips suited to autonomous agents such as Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots.

AMD is benefiting from the rise of virtual computers that rely on EPYC processors to keep agents running for long periods. The company’s data center business revenue more than doubled year-over-year to $6.7 billion for the June quarter, accounting for approximately 60% of total revenue. Morgan Stanley estimates Muse may account for 20% of AMD’s chip sales in 2026.

Competition is broadening as cloud providers use Intel and AMD CPUs while also developing Arm-based custom chips, and NVIDIA has introduced Vera for agent workloads. AMD forecasted in July that the CPU market would reach $220 billion in sales by 2030 and said it expected to capture more than half of that market.