AMD Just Blew Out Earnings -- and Wall Street Can't Get Enough. Analyst Price Targets Are Skyrocketing

The rapid rise of agentic artificial intelligence is showing no signs of slowing.

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD), a leader in CPUs, which is a critical component of agentic AI, just reported strong first-quarter 2026 earnings, sending the stock soaring by more than 17% as of 11:30 a.m. ET today.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.37, beating estimates by $0.08, while revenue of $10.25 billion beat estimates of $9.89 billion. Revenue also grew 38% year over year.

The big story was in AMD's data center division, where AMD sells CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs). Revenue in this unit grew 57% year over year to $5.8 billion.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

"We delivered an outstanding first quarter, driven by accelerating demand for AI infrastructure, with Data Center now the primary driver of our revenue and earnings growth," AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su said in a statement. "We are seeing strong momentum as inferencing and agentic AI drive increasing demand for high-performance CPUs and accelerators.

For the second quarter, AMD expects $11.2 billion of revenue, nearly $1 billion more than the first quarter and well above expectations. Wall Street couldn't get enough of the report. Not only did the stock surge, but Wall Street analysts also issued significantly higher price targets.

As Agentic AI grows, so to should AMD's revenue

Analyst research reports can move stocks in a big way, especially with a large price target hike, because it signals greater confidence in the stock over the next 12 to 18 months.

Following last night's earnings report, analysts issued a slew of new research reports, several with much higher price targets. Here were some of the most bullish reports out this morning:

• Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley raised his price target by $200 to $500 per share, also keeping an overweight rating on the stock.
• KeyBanc analyst John Vinh raised his price target on AMD by $200 to $530 and maintained an overweight rating on the stock.
• TD Cowen analyst Joshua Buchalter raised his price target on AMD from $290 to $500 per share and maintained a buy rating.
• Baird analyst Tristan Gerra raised his price target on AMD by $300 to $625 and maintained an outperform rating.

With AMD trading around $417 per share, as of this writing, after a big rally this morning, that still leaves strong upside for the stock.

Baird analyst Gerra simply sees the market for CPUs getting much bigger, largely due to agentic workloads that rely on more traditional CPUs to orchestrate and carry out tasks, whether it's pulling information from a website or a computer file that an AI agent needs to complete a task.

Gerra and his team see the total addressable market for CPUs growing at a 35% compound annual rate over a three- to five-year period, reaching $120 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, AMD's data center revenue is likely to grow 70% year over year in the second quarter, according to Baird.

While the company is performing great, remember AMD just went on a big run, so now may not be the time to take a big position in the stock, at least initially. I would recommend starting with a smaller position and then dollar-cost averaging to build it more slowly.

Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices. The Motley Fool recommends Barclays Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.