Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock surged 7.7% on Wednesday, closing at $249.76, fueled by bullish analyst commentary centered on soaring artificial intelligence (AI) demand and a strategic partnership with crypto mining firm Riot Platforms.
The rally was driven by two key Wall Street analyst actions. Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon raised his price target on AMD to $225 from $200, maintaining a Market Perform rating. He cited progress in AMD's AI efforts, noting that while OpenAI is currently the only major announced customer for AMD's Helios AI chips, the ramp-up is expected later in 2026. Rasgon highlighted strength in AMD's core server business, predicting that sales of its high-performance Epyc processors could surge 30% in 2026.
Concurrently, KeyBanc analyst John Vinh expressed strong optimism ahead of AMD's Q4 earnings report on February 3rd. Vinh expects AMD to beat consensus estimates, driven by robust demand for its Turin data center CPUs. He believes AMD is nearly sold out of server CPUs for all of 2026, a supply constraint that could enable the company to raise prices by as much as 15%. Vinh also forecasted that AMD's revenue from AI chips will exceed $14 billion this year as its MI455 accelerator moves into volume production in Q3.
A significant development linking AMD's growth directly to the cryptocurrency sector is a recently signed agreement with Riot Platforms. The 10-year Data Center Lease and Services Agreement at Riot's Rockdale site in Texas includes an initial deployment of 25 MW of critical IT infrastructure, with potential expansion to 200 MW. Deliveries are set to begin in phases starting January 2026.
Further bolstering investor confidence was AMD's recent appointment of KC McClure, former CFO of Accenture, to its board of directors. Analysts view this as a strategic win, adding enterprise-scale decision-making expertise as AMD scales aggressively in AI and data centers.
