What Was AMD Telling You Before Its Stock Ran

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock returned 277% in the twelve months to September 28, 2026. That nearly quadrupled the value of a holding. The run turned out to be about data center chips: the server processors and AI accelerators AMD sells. A gain that size looks obvious afterward, but the fair way to judge it is by what was public beforehand. So what did AMD's management say before its stock ran?

Management Said AMD's AI Chip Sales Were Ramping

AMD's management was describing growing AI chip sales almost a year before the run. On the October 29, 2024, call, management said sales of its data center GPUs had ramped up. GPUs are the chips used to develop AI. Management tied the ramp to wider adoption of its MI300X chip. AMD also reported record sales of two product lines: its Instinct AI chips and its EPYC server processors.

By the February 4, 2025, call, management said AMD had built a multi-billion-dollar data center AI business. AMD's total revenue growth, year over year, rose too. It went from 17.6% in the third quarter of 2024 to 36% in the first quarter of 2025. AMD filed those first-quarter results on May 7, 2025, months before the run.

The signs were readable in AMD's own words and filings. The share price moved the other way. By March 29, 2025, AMD stock had fallen 50% from its early-2024 peak.

On the August 5, 2025 call, management said U.S. export rules had effectively ended one chip's sales to China. That chip was the MI308. AMD posted an operating loss in the second quarter of 2025. The company later said that quarter included about $800 million of charges tied to those export rules. The stock was down sharply by March 2025, and AMD's MI308 sales to China were gone. You had reasons to doubt those signs until the stock ran.

AMD Stock Ran As Quarterly Data Center Sales Doubled

The S&P 500 returned 17.7% over the same twelve months. AMD's gain was more than 15 times that. Most of the gain came in the final six months, when the stock returned 201%.

The business had changed by then. AMD's data center revenue more than doubled to $6.7 billion in the second quarter of 2026. That was 58% of total company revenue. EPYC server processor sales rose more than 70%, and Instinct AI chip sales more than doubled. AMD's growth during the run came from the same two product lines it had flagged in October 2024.

Is AMD's Data Center Growth Still Building?

Yes, on management's own forecast. For the third quarter of 2026, AMD guided total revenue to about $13 billion, plus or minus $300 million. AMD also expected strong double-digit sequential growth in data centers. The midpoint of that revenue guidance would be 41% above a year earlier. Management also expects data center revenue to more than double in 2027.

The difference from 2025 is the price. AMD trades at 154.2 times its past twelve months of earnings, against 22.1 times for the S&P 500. That ratio is what you pay for each dollar of annual profit. A ratio that high means the price assumes strong growth ahead.

The growth AMD flagged before the run is still building today. This time, though, you pay a much higher price for it. Third-quarter 2026 revenue within the guided $13 billion, plus or minus $300 million, would signal the company's growth is still building. Revenue below that range would be a sign the growth is slowing.

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