Lisa Su has been named Yahoo Finance’s 2026 CEO of the Year after Advanced Micro Devices shares surged 158% year-to-date, while Nvidia fell 7% and Broadcom slipped about 1%. AMD’s valuation crossed $1 trillion for the first time in late September before retreating to around $906 billion.
Su joined AMD as a senior executive in 2012 and became CEO in 2014. She told Yahoo Finance Invest she wanted to work at a company “at the bleeding edge of technology” and said computing could have a meaningful effect on the economy and everyday life. Under her leadership, AMD broadened its chip portfolio through the Xilinx acquisition and, in 2026, agreed to pay $8.2 billion for World Labs, an AI company focused on generating and understanding three-dimensional spaces. World Labs founder Fei-Fei Li will become AMD’s executive vice president and chief scientist, reporting directly to Su. AMD also has a deal with Meta that could see the Facebook parent own up to 10% of AMD.
AMD’s third-quarter results showed record revenue of $13.38 billion, up 45% year over year and above the $13.06 billion Wall Street estimate. Adjusted earnings per share reached $2.09, up 74% and above the $1.94 consensus. The data center segment contributed $8.5 billion, up 97%, helped by EPYC server processors and Instinct MI450 AI accelerators. AMD expects data center sales to rise another 50% quarter over quarter in the fourth quarter. For 2027, Su is targeting revenue growth above 80% and a doubling of server and data center AI revenue, powered by MI450 GPUs and sixth-generation EPYC Venice CPUs. Those components feed Helios, AMD’s rack-scale AI system, which Microsoft began integrating into Azure AI services in the second half of 2026. Anthropic aims to purchase up to two gigawatts of MI450 GPUs through Helios from early 2027, a deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars, while AMD separately plans to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic.
Separately, Nvidia’s board has approached Arm CEO Rene Haas as a potential successor to Jensen Huang, according to the Financial Times. Haas is one of several people under consideration, and Nvidia told Reuters it has not formally engaged any candidate. Haas spent seven years at Nvidia before joining Arm in 2013 and later leading the company through its 2023 Nasdaq IPO. Arm reported quarterly revenue of $1.44 billion, up 27% year over year, with data-center chip royalties doubling. Haas also sits on SoftBank’s board and has served as CEO of SoftBank Group International since April, meaning a move to Nvidia would require untangling those ties.
The leadership uncertainty follows Huang’s resignation after 33 years at the company he co-founded. Reports cited extramarital relationships, including one with a business executive suspected by U.S. officials of having Chinese intelligence ties. Nvidia said it had no reason to believe its secrets were compromised. CFO Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO, and longtime director Harvey Jones has become board chair. An internal Nvidia suggestion-box post has drawn more than 1,600 comments, with some employees urging the board to bring Huang back. Analysts have also floated Nvidia data-center executive Ian Buck and AMD chief Lisa Su as possible successors, though no offers have been confirmed. Nvidia is scheduled to report earnings on November 17.
