AMD Guides $17B Q4 Revenue, Set to Outsell Intel for First Time

AMD guided fourth-quarter revenue to approximately $17 billion, plus or minus 3%. If met, quarterly sales would surpass Intel's for the first time in the companies' history. Intel expects $15 billion to $16 billion for the same quarter, which puts AMD's projected advantage at roughly $1.5 billion at the midpoint of both forecasts.

The guidance implies 66% year-over-year growth and 27% sequential growth for AMD. The figure rests on AI infrastructure demand. It does not rest on the PC market, which AMD itself expects to shrink. The company reported its results late on Tuesday.

What did Q3 deliver?

AMD's third-quarter revenue reached a record $13.377 billion, up from $9.25 billion a year earlier and $11.54 billion in the previous quarter. Gross margin was 54%. Net income rose 95% to $2.43 billion, and diluted earnings per share reached $1.46, against $0.75 a year ago.

How large is the data center business now?

The Data Center unit generated a record $8.55 billion in Q3, up 97% from $4.34 billion a year earlier and 27% sequentially. Operating income surged 168% to $2.88 billion. Operating margin expanded from 25% to 34%. The unit now accounts for 64% of total company revenue, compared with 47% in Q3 2025.

AMD attributed the result to demand for its latest Epyc server processors and the launch of Instinct MI455X accelerators (chips for AI workloads) inside Helios rack-scale systems. The company named Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as customers already running workloads on their first Helios installations.

Lisa Su, chief executive and chairman of AMD, said during the earnings call: "We now expect server revenue to double year over year in 2027 and data center AI revenue to grow even faster than we projected ninety days ago. As a result, we expect data center to be more than eighty percent of our total revenue in 2027 and to drive the majority of our revenue and earnings growth."

What happens to the client and gaming segment?

Not everything grows. The Client and Gaming unit produced $3.722 billion in revenue, down 8% year-over-year and 3% quarter-over-quarter. Client CPU sales totaled $2.95 billion, down from $3.06 billion in the prior quarter but up roughly $200 million from $2.75 billion a year ago.

Gaming revenue fell to $773 million from $1.298 billion a year earlier. Microsoft and Sony bought fewer console system-on-chips, and sales of discrete Radeon RX GPUs stayed weak. Segment operating income dropped 34% to $573 million. Operating margin decreased to 15%.

Su was blunt about the PC outlook. "In 2027, we are planning for PC market unit shipments to decline by a double-digit percentage," she said. "In this environment, we expect to outperform the market as we deliver our rising roadmap and grow our commercial footprint."

AMD projects the Client and Gaming segment to contract by more than 20% sequentially in Q4 2026 as higher memory prices weaken PC demand. The company did not provide a specific 2027 revenue forecast for the segment. That omission matters; the outperformance claim has no attached number.

Is the embedded business holding up?

Embedded revenue grew 29% year-over-year to $1.11 billion. Operating income rose 60% to $453 million. AMD cited stronger demand from aerospace and defense, automotive, communications, and industrial customers.

"Data center build-outs are also driving higher demand for our embedded CPUs and adaptive SoCs in control plane and optical networking applications," Su said. "We remain on track to close more than eighteen billion of design wins in 2026, our third consecutive record year."

AMD expects double-digit sequential growth for Embedded in Q4 2026, then double-digit annual growth over the next several years.

Why does the Intel milestone matter?

The two companies now occupy different positions. AMD is expanding data center CPUs and AI accelerators rapidly. Intel still depends on PC and enterprise server processors, segments facing high memory prices and component shortages. A single quarter is not a permanent reversal, and Intel's forecast carries its own constraints on manufacturing capacity. But a $17 billion quarter from AMD would mark a formal change in rank between the two rivals.