AMD Guides to $17B Revenue, Poised to Overtake Intel in x86

AMD told investors it expects around $17 billion in revenue next quarter, above Intel's own guidance of $15 billion to $16 billion, according to The Register. If both forecasts hold, AMD would for the first time become the larger revenue earner among vendors whose main product is x86 processors.

What Happened

AMD published its Q3 2026 results on Tuesday, reporting revenue of $13.4 billion, up 45 percent year-over-year, according to The Register. The Data Center segment drove most of that growth, bringing in $8.5 billion, up 97 percent year-over-year.

The client and gaming segment was weaker overall, sliding eight percent to $3.7 billion. The Register noted that this was a worse fall than the five percent decline that helped sink Intel's share price. Within the segment, however, PC chip sales rose seven percent year-over-year to $2.9 billion, and the decline came from the gaming side. CEO Lisa Su credited strong sales of Ryzen mobile processors for the PC growth. "Commercial is becoming a larger part of our client business as large enterprises adopt Ryzen PRO PCs across their employee base," she said, pointing to adoption at the world's largest banks, automotive companies, and healthcare organisations.

Intel's next-quarter guidance of $15 billion to $16 billion would represent almost no growth, The Register said. AMD's roughly $17 billion forecast would, if achieved, make it the leader in revenue from selling chips, although Intel would still report higher overall revenue because of its foundry operations.

Looking ahead, Su said AMD expects the overall company to grow by more than 80 percent in 2027, with the data center CPU business roughly doubling and the data center AI business growing "significantly more than double." She said AMD had "worked across our supply chain to secure the wafers, substrates, advanced packaging, memory, and other key components needed to support much higher growth next year," and was investing alongside supply chain partners to secure long-term capacity. AMD's shares rose around five percent in after-hours trading following the results, per The Register.

By the Numbers

The figures show how quickly AMD's revenue base is moving. Going from $13.4 billion in Q3 to about $17 billion would mean sequential growth of roughly 27 percent in a single quarter, a large step for a company of AMD's size. Intel's $15 billion to $16 billion range has a midpoint of $15.5 billion, so AMD's guidance sits about $1.5 billion above it. The Data Center segment alone accounted for close to two-thirds of AMD's Q3 revenue, which means the company's overall trajectory is now largely set by server CPU and AI accelerator demand rather than by PCs.

The client and gaming numbers also show how different parts of the business are moving in opposite directions. With the segment at $3.7 billion and PC chip sales at $2.9 billion, gaming accounted for roughly $0.8 billion of the segment in the quarter, and it was that portion that pulled the combined figure down. For investors comparing AMD with Intel, that distinction matters: AMD's PC processor business grew while its gaming business shrank, whereas Intel's guidance points to a flat quarter overall.

Why It Matters

AMD's guidance overtaking Intel's matters less for the dollar gap than for what it shows about where x86 growth is concentrated. The Register described AMD as arguably already the server CPU technology leader and, while second to Nvidia in GPUs, well ahead of Intel there. The mix inside the client business also points to higher-quality demand: The Register noted that large corporate buyers are often a source of bigger profits or steadier revenue than retail and small-business sales.

Su's comments about securing wafers, substrates, and advanced packaging highlight a structural difference from Intel. AMD designs its processors but relies on external manufacturing partners to build them, so its ability to hit the 2027 targets depends on the capacity it has reserved with those partners as well as on demand for its chips.

What to Watch

The next quarterly report will show whether AMD delivers on its $17 billion guidance and whether Intel's near-flat forecast proves temporary. The size of the Data Center segment in that report will also show whether server CPU and AI accelerator demand is still doing most of the work behind AMD's growth. Su's 2027 targets, particularly more than doubling the data center AI business, will be tested against whether the supply commitments she described translate into shipped product. MachineHours' comparison of TSMC, Samsung, and Intel Foundry offers context on the manufacturing capacity behind chip designers such as AMD.

Further reading and context

• TSMC vs Samsung vs Intel Foundry — Semiconductor Manufacturing in 2026
• The Microprocessor Revolution — Computing on a Single Chip
• How Chips Are Made — Inside the World's Most Complex Manufacturing