AMD On Pace To Top Intel In Revenue For First Time After Crushing Q3

AMD is on the verge of surpassing Intel in quarterly revenue for the first time in its history, a milestone that once seemed almost unthinkable. It hasn't happened yet, but following a monster third quarter in which AMD's data center revenue gained 97% compared to last year, the company is on track to leapfrog its longtime rival in Q4, barring any unforeseen setbacks or surprises.

Fueling that momentum is yet another record-breaking quarter. Building on its impressive Q2 earnings, AMD reported $13.4 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2026, representing a 16% sequential gain and a massive 45% year-over-year surge. Meanwhile, net income nearly doubled year-over-year, increasing 95% to $2.4 billion.

"We delivered a record quarter with revenue exceeding the high end of our guidance as Data Center segment sales nearly doubled year-over-year," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. "Demand for our Instinct and EPYC products continued to strengthen, and we expect growth to accelerate further in the fourth quarter as we scale Helios and ‘Venice’ production. With our leadership product portfolio and deep customer and supply chain relationships, we are confident in our ability to sustain very strong revenue growth and expanding profitability over the coming years."

Indeed, it was the Data Center division that did the heavy lifting for AMD, accounting for $8.5 billion of its total Q3 revenue. In addition to strong demand for its EPYC server processors, AMD also credits the growth to the launch of its Instinct MI450 series GPUs. The company says Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are already running workloads on its initial Helios rack-scale systems powered by its Instinct MI450 accelerators and 6th Gen EPYC chips.

The Data Center gains helped offset a decline in its Client and Gaming revenue, which slipped 8% year-over-year to $3.7 billion. Client revenue actually increased 7% to $2.9 billion, but gaming revenue plunged 40% to $773 million amid weaker semi-custom and graphics chip sales.

Meanwhile, Intel's own Data Center business recently soared 78% to $7.3 billion, showing that both chipmakers are benefiting from AI infrastructure spending. However, Intel's warning of the "PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year" and softer-than-expected Q4 guidance tanked the company's stock and created an opening for AMD to make a splash.

Looking ahead, AMD expects Q4 revenue to land around $17 billion, plus or minus 3%, compared to Intel's guidance of $15 billion to $16 billion for the same period. Even at the low end of AMD's forecast, the company would surpass Intel in revenue, a feat AMD has never achieved before.

Investors reacted positively to AMD's Q3 earnings—shares of AMD rose by as much as 9% in pre-market trading.