AMD Posts Record Revenue as Data Center Sales Nearly Double

Advanced Micro Devices reported record quarterly revenue in its fiscal third quarter of 2026, released after the United States market close on November 3. Sales of data center chips nearly doubled from a year earlier and drove the growth. The company also gave a fourth-quarter revenue outlook above market expectations.

Revenue was 13.377 billion dollars, up 45 percent from 9.246 billion dollars a year earlier and up 16 percent from the previous quarter. AMD’s own August forecast was revenue of about 13.0 billion dollars, plus or minus 300 million dollars, and the actual result came in above the top of that range.

Earnings per share were reported on two bases. Adjusted earnings per share, which exclude one-time items, were 2.09 dollars, up 74 percent from 1.20 dollars a year earlier. Earnings per share under United States generally accepted accounting principles, known as GAAP, were 1.46 dollars, up 95 percent from 0.75 dollars a year earlier. GAAP net income was 2.428 billion dollars.

Comparisons with market expectations differ slightly by the firm compiling them. TipRanks put the consensus at adjusted earnings of 1.95 dollars a share on revenue of 13.1 billion dollars, and Bloomberg figures carried by Yahoo Finance put it at 1.97 dollars a share on revenue of about 13 billion dollars. Both were below AMD’s actual results, and the estimates are for comparison only, not AMD’s reported figures.

The difference between GAAP and adjusted profit included a 1.097 billion dollar cost from changes in the value of warrants given to a customer. A warrant is a right to buy AMD shares at a set price, and its value moves with the share price, AMD explained.

Lisa Su, AMD’s chair and chief executive, said in the company’s statement that demand remained strong. Su said data center revenue nearly doubled from a year earlier and that she expected growth to accelerate in the fourth quarter as production of the Helios system and the Venice chip ramped up.

Helios Moves AMD From Selling Chips to Selling Systems

The data center business was the center of the quarter. Data center revenue was 8.55 billion dollars, a record, up 97 percent from a year earlier. It made up about 64 percent of total revenue, up sharply from 47 percent a year earlier. Demand for EPYC server processors and Instinct MI450 graphics processors for artificial intelligence work drove the growth, AMD said.

Helios takes AMD a step beyond selling chips alone. It bundles graphics processors for artificial intelligence and server processors into rack-scale systems, supplied as one large AI system. A rack is the frame in which servers are stacked vertically in a data center. AMD said its first Helios systems were running models and workloads at Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The first systems are in testing at Meta. Reuters reported that the initial systems were being tested at Meta, and AMD said Helios had entered production and would ramp up in the fourth quarter. Venice is the sixth-generation EPYC server chip used in Helios.

Gross margin is the share of revenue left after subtracting the direct cost of making products. Adjusted gross margin was 56 percent, up from 54 percent a year earlier and unchanged from the previous quarter. GAAP gross margin was 54 percent.

The fourth-quarter outlook is revenue of about 17 billion dollars, plus or minus 3 percent. At the midpoint, that would be about 66 percent higher than a year earlier and about 27 percent higher than the third quarter. Adjusted gross margin was guided at about 55 percent, however, down one percentage point from 56 percent in the third quarter.

On the margin decline, Chief Financial Officer Jean Hu said on the earnings call that data center artificial intelligence revenue would pass server revenue in the fourth quarter and that AI revenue carried margins slightly below the company average. Hu added that profit in dollars was growing strongly. Selling systems by the rack carries more outside component costs, such as memory, than selling chips alone, which can lower the margin rate. High-bandwidth memory is high-speed memory attached to AI chips, and Reuters reported that it was in short supply worldwide.

PC Demand Slowdown Expected to Continue Next Year

The personal computer and gaming businesses moved in opposite directions. Combined client and gaming revenue was 3.722 billion dollars, down 8 percent from a year earlier. Within that, client revenue from chips for personal computers was 2.95 billion dollars, up 7 percent, led by sales of Ryzen mobile processors, AMD said. Gaming revenue was 773 million dollars, down 40 percent, on lower sales of custom chips for game consoles and graphics products. Embedded revenue was 1.109 billion dollars, up 29 percent, led by demand in aerospace and defense, automotive, telecommunications and industrial markets.

The PC slowdown drew attention as AMD’s answer after a warning from Intel. Intel guided fourth-quarter revenue below market expectations on October 29, citing a weaker PC business, and chip stocks shook afterward. AMD’s third-quarter PC chip revenue grew, but Su said on the call that PC sell-through softened toward the end of the quarter. Rising memory and component prices weighed on demand, she said.

AMD said it was planning for PC market unit shipments to fall by a double-digit percentage in 2027. The company said it aimed to beat the market through its Ryzen product line and growth in commercial PC sales.

The outlook for 2027 was larger still. Su said on the call that she expected revenue to grow by more than 80 percent in 2027. Server revenue would roughly double, data center AI revenue would grow much faster, and data center revenue would pass 80 percent of total revenue, she said. That is the company’s forecast, not yet realized, and it is above the 77 percent analyst growth expectation in LSEG figures reported by Reuters.

The share reaction came right after the release. AMD shares closed the regular session on November 3 at 483.90 dollars, up 3.65 percent from the previous close of 466.84 dollars. In after-hours trading, the shares were at 520.22 dollars at 6:09 p.m. Eastern time, up 7.51 percent from the regular-session close, according to Finnhub figures. After-hours trading takes place after the regular close with lower volume, so prices can move sharply, and the figures can change over time.

Analyst views before the release were mixed. According to TipRanks, Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore kept a Hold rating and raised his price target to 510 dollars from 465 dollars, while BMO Capital analyst Harsh Kumar kept a Buy rating and a 550 dollar price target. Both views came before the release and are the analysts’ judgments, not AMD’s reported results.

The next checkpoint is the fourth quarter: whether AMD meets its revenue outlook of about 17 billion dollars as Helios production expands, and how the margin rate moves as the sales mix shifts.