AMD Posts Record Revenue As Data Center AI Demand Surges 39%
Big tech is currently enjoying a virtual license to print money thanks to booming artificial intelligence (AI) demand, with record earnings becoming the norm as of late (though not always). AMD is no exception—the chip designer reported a record $10.3 billion in fourth quarter earnings, with the strong finish accelerating AMD's bottom line for the full year to an also-record high at $34.6 billion. Cue the GIF of Scrooge McDuck swimming in a vault of coins.
To anyone who's been paying attention, it should come as no surprise that AMD's Data Center business was the primary driver of revenue, both for the quarter and the full year. The Data Center segment exploded to $5.4 billion for the quarter, for a huge 39% year-over-year gain driven by demand for AMD's EPYC processors and continued ramp of its Instinct GPU shipments. For the full year, the Data Center generated a record $16.6 billion, up 32% year-over-year.
"2025 was a defining year for AMD, with record revenue and earnings driven by strong execution and broad-based demand for our high-performance and AI platforms," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. "We are entering 2026 with strong momentum across our business, led by accelerating adoption of our high-performance EPYC and Ryzen CPUs and the rapid scaling of our data center AI franchise."
Outside of the Data Center segment, AMD's combined Client and Gaming division added $3.9 billion to pile, for a 37% year-over-year gain. And for the full year, Client and Gaming ballooned 51% to a record $14.6 billion, which AMD attributed to having a "rich product mix."
If focusing solely on the Gaming part, the results were a little more mixed, though mostly positive overall. Gaming alone contributed $837 million in the quarter, which is down 35% sequentially "mainly from semi-custom sales," but up 50% year-over-year.
That will be a segment to keep an eye on going forward, given that consumer GPU prices are in a bit of flux at the moment. Looking longer-term, Dr. Su confirmed that the Microsoft is on track to launch its next-generation Xbox in 2027, which will be powered by a custom AMD system-on-chip (SoC). In the more immediate future, Dr. Su also confirmed that Valve still plans to release its AMD-powered Steam Machine this year.
The other thing to watch is how the memory crunch will affect AMD's business operations. During an earnings call, Dr. Su acknowledged that the total addressable market (TAM) for consumer PCs is "down a bit just given some the inflationary pressures of the commodities pricing, including memory," be remains confident that AMD can continue to grow in that segment.
On the Data Center side, Dr. Su addressed a question about memory procurement as it relates to HBM.
"I feel very good about our supply chain capabilities. We have been planning for this ramp. So independent of the current market conditions, we've been planning for a significant ramp in our both CPU as well as our GPU business over the past, you know, couple of years," Dr. Su said.
The last interesting bit from AMD's latest earnings report had to do with its presence in China. Looking ahead to next quarter, AMD expects a softer $9.8 billion quarter, which includes $100 million in Instinct MI308 sales to China. Dr. Su said AMD isn't forecasting any additional revenue from China because "it's a very dynamic situation." AMD could potentially make more than that from its AI accelerator sales in the region, but isn't banking on it due to "regulatory uncertainty."
