AMD shares rise after analyst upgrades cite AI, GPU growth

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices surged on Thursday and Friday, driven by a pair of bullish analyst upgrades that highlighted the chipmaker's expanding role in artificial intelligence. The stock closed up approximately 8% on Thursday, reaching around $488.66, and gained another 5% in Friday afternoon trading to near $512.

The rally was sparked by two major Wall Street firms raising their price targets and investment ratings for AMD within hours of each other. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya initiated the momentum, raising his price target to $560 from $500 and naming AMD his top pick in the server CPU market. Arya significantly increased his estimate for the total addressable market for server CPUs by 2030 to $170 billion, up from a prior projection of $125 billion, citing agentic AI as a primary driver.

Citi analyst Atif Malik followed with an even more aggressive call, upgrading AMD from Neutral to Buy and lifting his 12-month price target to $575 from $460. Malik's core thesis is that the market continues to undervalue AMD's graphics processing unit business, viewing the company primarily as a CPU stock. He argued that AMD is emerging as a legitimate second source in the...