AMD investors are in the peculiar position of hoping for Nvidia's success tomorrow. It's one of those strange bedfellows situations that periodically emerges in tech: your rival's triumph might actually lift your boat rather than sink it. With Nvidia's earnings report looming and AMD's fresh IBM partnership announced, there's a palpable buzz around whether Team Red is positioning for its next major run.
Let's unpack this odd dynamic. If Nvidia reports gangbusters earnings tomorrow (which most analysts expect), it could legitimize the entire AI chip market's sky-high valuations rather than simply stealing AMD's thunder. The "rising tide lifts all boats" theory suggests good news for Nvidia translates to market optimism about AI infrastructure spending broadly, not just for Jensen's leather jacket collection.
I spoke with three fund managers this week who all shared variations of the same thesis: Nvidia's success actually validates AMD's long-term strategy. "If AI chip demand continues to outstrip supply, Lisa Su's methodical build-out starts looking less like playing catch-up and more like savvy resource allocation," one portfolio manager told me, requesting anonymity because he wasn't authorized to sound quite so bullish in public.
The IBM partnership announcement feels strategically timed before Nvidia's earnings precisely to remind investors that AMD isn't ceding the AI acceleration market without a fight. The deal positions AMD's MI300X accelerators in IBM's upcoming AI-optimized systems, giving Su a credible enterprise foothold to counter Nvidia's dominance.
But here's where it gets interesting. AMD hitting $200 by the November earnings call? That's asking a lot from a stock that's been trading sideways despite the broader tech rally. The math suggests it would require roughly a 35% run-up in less than a month. Not impossible in this market – we've seen stranger things – but it would likely require both stellar Nvidia numbers AND AMD convincingly articulating an accelerated AI revenue roadmap.
The trillion-dollar market cap question by 2028 is where speculation meets basic arithmetic. AMD currently sits around $260 billion in market cap. To reach the trillion-dollar club in four years would require a compound annual growth rate of roughly 40%. For perspective, AMD grew revenue at about 45% annually between 2019-2022 before the recent slowdown. So the trillion-dollar target isn't fantasy, but it does assume AMD successfully executes its AI strategy AND maintains strength in its traditional CPU markets against Intel's resurgence attempts.
The whisper numbers I'm hearing suggest AMD's MI300 series could generate $4-5 billion in revenue next year if production ramps successfully. Not Nvidia-level numbers, but nothing to sneeze at either. The bulls I've spoken with see AMD potentially capturing 25-30% of the AI accelerator market by 2026 – a slice that would be worth tens of billions in annual revenue given current market trajectory.
What's particularly amusing is how AMD shareholders find themselves in the position of cheering for Nvidia's success tomorrow while simultaneously hoping for AMD to eat Nvidia's lunch long-term. It's the tech investment equivalent of congratulating someone on their promotion while secretly applying for their job.
So what's the smart money doing? From conversations I've had, institutional investors are maintaining core Nvidia positions while gradually building AMD stakes as an AI hedge. "If the AI spending environment remains strong, both can win," as one analyst put it to me over drinks last week. "If it moderates, AMD's diversification across CPUs, GPUs, and custom silicon gives them multiple ways to grow."
The most interesting signal might come not from Nvidia's headline numbers tomorrow but from their forward guidance. If they indicate AI chip demand remains constrained by supply rather than budgets, that's the scenario where AMD's strategic position looks strongest.
For what it's worth, I think the $200 target by November feels ambitious but not impossible. The trillion-dollar market cap by 2028? Let's just say I've seen enough tech market cycles to know that extrapolating current growth rates four years out is how investment theses go to die. But if anyone can engineer that trajectory, Lisa Su has certainly earned the benefit of the doubt.
In this AI chip gold rush, Nvidia may be selling the picks and shovels today, but AMD is methodically building out its own hardware store. Tomorrow's earnings call might tell us just how much gold is still in them hills.
