Meet the AI Stock Crushing Palantir, Nvidia, and Alphabet Right Now

Surging demand for semiconductors has sent Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) to fresh highs in May. The stock is currently up 115% year to date, leaving other top artificial intelligence (AI) stocks in the dust, including Palantir (down 24%), Nvidia (up 18%), and Alphabet (up 25%).

AMD recently reported strong first-quarter earnings results, fueling the stock's breakout run. Here's what's driving AMD's stunning performance.

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Accelerating data center demand

Advanced AI workloads require more than just powerful graphics processing units (GPUs). The demand is spreading to many different chips and components, especially central processing units (CPUs), which are a core part of AMD's chip portfolio.

That shift helped drive revenue up 38% year over year to $10.3 billion last quarter. Data center now makes up the majority of AMD's business, with segment revenue up 57% to a record $5.8 billion.

AMD's quarter shows chip demand isn't slowing down -- it's accelerating. Companies are buying AMD's EPYC CPUs to support real-time decision-making through AI inference and agentic systems that run autonomously. CPUs are being used for orchestration, data transmission, and other tasks alongside GPUs. AMD now sees server CPU revenue growing 70% year over year in Q2.

The biggest signal for investors, though, was the long-term outlook. CEO Lisa Su doubled the company's prior forecast for CPU market growth from an annualized rate of 18% to more than 35% through 2030. As she said on the earnings call, "These results mark a clear inflection in our growth trajectory and a structural shift in our business."

Clear growth catalysts in 2026

AMD stock is soaring not only because of its long-term growth prospects, but also because of clear near-term catalysts.

In 2026, AMD is set to see even faster data center growth as it prepares to ship custom MI450 GPUs for Meta Platforms and OpenAI. EPYC Venice CPUs integrated with AMD's Helios rack systems are also on track to launch in the second half of the year.

AMD is seeing growing demand across the enterprise and the cloud market, with every hyperscaler expanding its EPYC CPU deployments. The company is positioned to gain server market share, with new customer wins across financial services, healthcare, industrial, and digital infrastructure.

And despite higher memory prices pressuring the consumer PC market, AMD continues to see strong demand for Ryzen processors, with client segment revenue up 26% year over year.

Management expects softer PC demand later in the year due to high memory prices, but still expects to gain market share. That underscores AMD's competitive position in delivering strong cost-to-performance chips across both data center and consumer markets.

AMD's growth is undervalued

AMD's broad portfolio of GPUs, CPUs, and other offerings, such as field-programmable gate arrays, provides multiple paths to expand its addressable market. Its CPU addressable market alone is projected to reach at least $120 billion by 2030 -- notable against trailing-12-month revenue of $37 billion.

Still, after such a sharp rally, investors are debating whether to chase the stock or wait for a pullback. AMD trades at 35 times 2027 earnings estimates. That may look pricey, but it needs to be weighed against accelerating growth. Analysts expect earnings to rise 51% annualized over the next few years.

That combination makes AMD look inexpensive on a price-to-earnings growth (PEG) basis. The stock trades at a PEG ratio of 0.69. Any multiple below 1.0 is generally considered cheap for a growth stock. The stock could have more room to run in the near term, so waiting for a pullback may not be the best strategy.

Semiconductors are historically a cyclical industry, which is a risk, but over the next five years, AMD offers attractive return prospects. Its chiplet architecture is a major advantage, allowing it to efficiently tailor chips to customer needs -- and that helps explain why Meta and OpenAI struck long-term agreements with AMD in the last year. There may be other deals over the next year that add further fuel to the stock.

John Ballard has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.