AMD Earnings Show Data Center Sales Up 97% to $8.5 Billion
AMD's data center sales grew 97% from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2026, a $4.2 billion rise bigger than AMD's whole revenue gain. Nvidia, about 10 times bigger in data centers in its quarter to July, grew faster in all four matched quarters, though the gap shrank from 44 percentage points to 10.
AMD's revenue of $13.4 billion came in above the top of its own forecast range for the fifth quarter running. It forecasts about $17 billion for the fourth quarter. Outside data centers, its sales fell a little from a year earlier. The first Helios AI server racks are now running at Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle. These chips run many of the online and AI services people use every day, so their sales show how much of that spending reaches AMD. Size is why the same order matters more to AMD than to Nvidia. An extra $10 billion a year would add about 38% to AMD's data center sales over its last four quarters, and about 4% to Nvidia's over its four quarters to July.
AMD's quarter ended September 26, 2026, in three numbers
Show the data
| Item | Value | Times the smallest |
|---|---|---|
| Nvidia, quarter to Jul 26, 2026 | $89.0B | 10x |
| AMD, quarter to Sep 26, 2026 | $8.5B | 1.0x |
On this page
Every company reporting the same week, with its date and time, is in StockTitan's Earnings Calendar for the Week of November 2, 2026.
AMD earnings report for the third quarter of 2026
AMD sold $13.4 billion of chips in the quarter, 45% more than a year earlier. That was above the top of the range it forecast in August. Profit per share also rose, on the adjusted measure that leaves out some costs.
AMD reported revenue of $13.4 billion for the quarter that ended September 26, 2026, against $9.2 billion a year earlier.
In August it had forecast about $13.0 billion, give or take $300 million. The result came in $377 million above the middle of that range.
Under standard accounting (GAAP), AMD earned $1.46 a share. That figure carries a $1,097 million loss, or $0.66 a share, on warrants AMD gave two customers. Warrants are rights to buy AMD shares at a set price, and the release says their value moves with AMD's stock price.
Its adjusted (non-GAAP) figure leaves out that line and some other costs, such as stock pay and the cost of past deals. On that basis it earned $2.09 a share, against $1.20 a year earlier.
Adjusted gross margin was 56%, the share of sales left after the cost of making the chips. That was level with the 56% AMD had forecast.
Revenue has now come in above the top of AMD's own forecast range in each of the last five quarters.
At 4:16 p.m. Eastern time on November 3, 2026, AMD stock was up 6.4% in after-hours trading from its regular-session close, in StockTitan's real-time Nasdaq data.
Show the data
| Item | Low | High | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2025 | $8.40B | $9.00B | $9.25B |
| Q4 2025 | $9.30B | $9.90B | $10.27B |
| Q1 2026 | $9.50B | $10.10B | $10.25B |
| Q2 2026 | $10.90B | $11.50B | $11.54B |
| Q3 2026 | $12.70B | $13.30B | $13.38B |
| Measure | Q3 2026 | AMD's forecast (August 4, 2026) | Q3 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $13,377 million | $12.7 billion to $13.3 billion | $9,246 million |
| Gross margin, GAAP | 54% | not forecast | 52% |
| Gross margin, non-GAAP | 56% | about 56% | 54% |
| EPS, GAAP | $1.46 | not forecast | $0.75 |
| EPS, non-GAAP | $2.09 | not forecast | $1.20 |
| Free cash flow | $554 million | not forecast | $1,530 million |
| Diluted shares used for EPS | 1,661 million | not forecast | 1,641 million |
Source: AMD results releases for Q3 2026, Q2 2026 (the forecast) and Q3 2025.
AMD data center revenue and AI chips
AMD's data center business sells EPYC server processors and Instinct AI chips. Its sales grew faster from the second quarter than they had from the first, and they made up 64% of everything AMD sold.
The Data Center segment had revenue of $8.5 billion, up 97% from a year earlier. AMD said the growth was driven by strong demand for AMD EPYC processors and the launch of AMD Instinct MI450 Series GPUs. It made up 64% of AMD's sales, against 47% a year earlier.
In AMD's second-quarter release in August, chief financial officer Jean Hu said: "We expect Data Center sales to accelerate in the second half of 2026." From the second quarter to the third, data center sales grew 27%. In the second quarter they had grown 16% from the first. By that measure, the third quarter brought the speed-up she described.
Against a year earlier, growth slowed to 97% from 107% in the second quarter. That 107% was flattered by a weak base. In the spring of 2025, US export controls held back AMD's shipments of its Instinct MI308 chip to China.
The release headline calls them record sales of Instinct GPUs and EPYC CPUs. It also says Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are now running models and workloads on the first AMD Helios racks, which combine MI450 Series GPUs with 6th Gen EPYC processors. In July AMD had said it would begin shipping Helios to customers in the second half of 2026.
The segment's operating income was $2.88 billion, or 34% of its sales. That is its profit before interest, taxes and the costs AMD keeps at company level.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Q3 2025 | $4.34B |
| Q4 2025 | $5.38B |
| Q1 2026 | $5.78B |
| Q2 2026 | $6.72B |
| Q3 2026 | $8.55B |
AMD vs Nvidia data center growth
Nvidia's data center business is far bigger than AMD's, and its growth rate has also been higher, though the gap narrowed through July.
Nvidia's latest reported quarter ended July 26, 2026, when its data center revenue was $89.0 billion, up 117% from a year earlier. AMD's data center sales for the quarter to September 26, 2026 were $8.5 billion, so Nvidia's data center business is about 10 times the size of AMD's.
Nvidia's quarters end about a month after AMD's. In each of the four matched pairs from the fall of 2025 to the summer of 2026, Nvidia grew faster. The gap in growth rates narrowed, from 44 percentage points in the first pair to 10 in the last.
AMD's data center growth in its quarter to September 2026 was 97%, below Nvidia's latest reported rate of 117% for its quarter to July. The true match, Nvidia's quarter to October, is due on November 17.
A smaller business gets a bigger percentage gain from the same new revenue. In the latest pair, Nvidia also added far more in dollars. In its quarter to July, Nvidia's data center sales were $47.9 billion higher than a year before. In its quarter to June, AMD's were $3.48 billion higher.
An extra $10 billion a year would add about 38% to AMD's data center sales over its last four quarters, and about 4% to Nvidia's over its four quarters to July.
Nvidia's margins are also much higher. Under standard accounting, its operating margin was 66% in its quarter to July, against AMD's 21% in its quarter to September 2026. That is the profit from running the business as a share of sales. These are company-wide figures, and AMD's include its PC, gaming and embedded chips, so they are not a data center margin.
Show the data
| Category | AMD | Nvidia |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 / Oct 2025 | 22% | 66% |
| Dec 2025 / Jan 2026 | 39% | 75% |
| Mar 2026 / Apr 2026 | 57% | 92% |
| Jun 2026 / Jul 2026 | 107% | 117% |
Show the data
| AMD quarter ended | AMD data center revenue | Growth from a year earlier | AMD gross margin, GAAP, company-wide | Nvidia quarter ended | Nvidia data center revenue | Growth from a year earlier | Nvidia gross margin, GAAP, company-wide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 27, 2025 | $4,341M | 22% | 52% | Oct 26, 2025 | $51.2B | 66% | 73.4% |
| Dec 27, 2025 | $5,380M | 39% | 54% | Jan 25, 2026 | $62.3B | 75% | 75.0% |
| Mar 28, 2026 | $5,775M | 57% | 53% | Apr 26, 2026 | $75.2B | 92% | 74.9% |
| Jun 27, 2026 | $6,718M | 107% | 54% | Jul 26, 2026 | $89.0B | 117% | 75.0% |
| Sep 26, 2026 | $8,546M | 97% | 54% | Oct 25, 2026 | due November 17, per Nvidia | not yet reported | not yet reported |
Source: AMD and Nvidia results releases for each quarter; growth rates as each release states them.
AMD guidance for the fourth quarter
AMD expects about $17 billion of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2026. AMD said that would be about 66% more than a year earlier.
The forecast is $17 billion, give or take 3%, or about $0.51 billion either way. AMD said the midpoint means an increase of about 27% from the third quarter.
It expects adjusted gross margin of about 55%, against the 56% it reported for the third quarter.
A year earlier, in the fourth quarter of 2025, AMD had revenue of $10.3 billion, of which $5.4 billion came from data centers.
Lisa Su, AMD's chief executive, said in the release: "Demand for our Instinct and EPYC products continued to strengthen, and we expect growth to accelerate further in the fourth quarter as we scale Helios and 'Venice' production." Venice is AMD's 6th Gen EPYC server processor, so she links the expected speed-up to its new AI racks and its newest server processor.
AMD PC, gaming and embedded chip sales
Sales of chips for PCs and game consoles were $3.7 billion, down 8% from a year earlier. Embedded chips, for cars, factories and other equipment, grew.
Client revenue, mostly Ryzen processors for laptops and desktops, was $2.9 billion, up 7% from a year earlier.
Gaming revenue, which includes the chips AMD designs for game consoles, was $773 million, down 40%. The release puts the fall down to lower semi-custom and graphics revenue, semi-custom being its name for those console chips.
The Embedded segment had revenue of $1.1 billion, up 29%. AMD said growth was led by aerospace and defense, automotive, communications and industrial end markets.
Outside data centers, AMD's sales taken together were $74 million lower than a year earlier, as the fall in gaming outweighed the gains in PC and embedded chips.
AMD stock, dividend, buybacks and debt
AMD pays no dividend. It made no repurchases under its buyback program in the quarter.
AMD's 2025 annual report says the company "does not expect to pay dividends in the near future." The cash flow statement shows no repurchases under the buyback program in the third quarter, while $1.50 billion of shares were bought back to cover employees' taxes on vesting stock awards. At the end of June, $9.2 billion was left under its $14 billion buyback program, according to its 10-Q for that quarter.
The release counts 1,661 million diluted shares for the quarter, the number used for earnings per share, against 1,641 million a year earlier.
In August, after the second quarter closed, AMD sold $4.75 billion of new bonds. At September 26, 2026, AMD held $15.78 billion of cash and short-term investments and $7.08 billion of debt.
Free cash flow in the quarter was $554 million, against $1,530 million a year earlier. That is cash from operations minus spending on equipment, and AMD spent $648 million on equipment in the quarter.
On October 27 AMD said it will put $1 billion into Meta's stock sale, so AMD is buying into a customer (StockTitan's article on the Meta deal).
The warrants AMD gave two customers, which its 10-Q for the June quarter identifies as Meta and OpenAI, could add to its share count. The release does not say whether either customer earned any part of its warrant by meeting the vesting conditions. Further technical and commercial conditions apply before vested warrants can be used to buy shares.
In a Form 8-K filed on September 28, AMD said it had agreed to take over World Labs for about $8.2 billion, paid in new AMD shares whose number is set just before closing. The World Labs deal and the customer warrants could both increase AMD's share count.
What to watch
- Whether any part of Meta's or OpenAI's warrants vested in the quarter: AMD's Form 10-Q for the third quarter, filed with the SEC.
- How many shares the World Labs deal adds: AMD's announcement or Form 8-K when the deal closes.
- Nvidia's data center growth for the quarter ended October 25, 2026: Nvidia's results on November 17, 2026, the date in Nvidia's call announcement.
Our numbers
These figures are our calculations from the AMD and Nvidia results releases. The two data center lines hold different products, and each matched pair sets an AMD quarter beside the Nvidia quarter ending a month later.
- Revenue above the top of AMD's own forecast range in each of the four quarters to June 2026: each quarter's revenue against the range in the release before it.
- Data center sales up $4.2 billion against a $4.1 billion rise in AMD's revenue: $8,546 million minus $4,341 million, and $13,377 million minus $9,246 million, third quarter of 2026 against a year earlier.
- Sales outside data centers $74 million lower: Client and Gaming plus Embedded revenue, $4,831 million against $4,905 million a year earlier.
- Data center at 47% of AMD's sales a year earlier and 16% growth from the first quarter to the second: $4,341 million divided by $9,246 million, and $6,718 million divided by $5,775 million, minus one.
- Nvidia's operating margin of 66%: $63,734 million of operating income divided by $96,221 million of revenue, quarter to July 2026.
- Nvidia's data center business at about 10 times AMD's: Nvidia's $89.0 billion (quarter to July 26, 2026) divided by AMD's $8.5 billion.
- Data center sales up 27% from the second quarter: third quarter segment revenue divided by $6,718 million, minus one.
- Data center at 64% of AMD's sales: segment revenue divided by total revenue.
- Revenue $377 million above the middle of AMD's forecast: reported revenue minus $13.0 billion.
- Nvidia faster in all four paired quarters, with the gap narrowing from 44 to 10 percentage points: each company's growth rate as its release states it, each AMD quarter paired with the Nvidia quarter ending a month later.
- $47.9 billion more data center sales for Nvidia (quarter to July 2026) and $3.48 billion more for AMD (quarter to June 2026): each quarter minus the same quarter a year earlier.
- An extra $10 billion a year adding about 38% for AMD and 4% for Nvidia: $10 billion divided by each company's data center sales over its last four reported quarters ($26.4 billion for AMD to September 2026, $277.7 billion for Nvidia to July 2026).
- Data center operating margin of 34% and AMD's GAAP operating margin of 21%: operating income divided by revenue.
Frequently asked questions
How was AMD's earnings report?
AMD reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $13.4 billion, up 45% from a year earlier, and adjusted earnings of $2.09 a share. Data center sales grew 97% to $8.5 billion.
Did AMD beat its own revenue forecast?
Against its own forecast, revenue of $13.4 billion came in above the top of AMD's range of $12.7 billion to $13.3 billion.
When is AMD's earnings call?
The release says AMD scheduled its call for 5 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Pacific) on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The webcast is on AMD's investor relations site.
Is AMD growing faster than Nvidia?
Not in any quarter matched so far. AMD's data center sales grew 97% in the quarter to September 26, 2026. Nvidia's grew 117% in its latest reported quarter, which ended July 26, 2026. Nvidia also grew faster in each of the four matched pairs of quarters through July.
What is AMD's revenue guidance for the fourth quarter of 2026?
AMD expects revenue of about $17 billion, give or take 3%, and adjusted gross margin of about 55%.
Does AMD pay a dividend?
No. AMD pays no dividend, and its 2025 annual report says it does not expect to pay one in the near future.
Sources
- AMD stock overview on StockTitan
- AMD financials on StockTitan
- AMD second-quarter 2026 earnings on StockTitan
- AMD third-quarter 2026 results release
- AMD second-quarter 2026 results release, with the third-quarter forecast
- AMD first-quarter 2026 results release
- AMD fourth-quarter 2025 results release
- AMD third-quarter 2025 results release
- AMD second-quarter 2025 results release
- Nvidia results for the quarter ended July 26, 2026
- Nvidia results for the quarter ended April 26, 2026
- Nvidia results for the quarter ended January 25, 2026
- Nvidia results for the quarter ended October 26, 2025
- Nvidia results for the quarter ended July 27, 2025
- Nvidia call announcement for its quarter ended October 25, 2026
- AMD 2025 annual report (Form 10-K)
- AMD Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026
- AMD Form 8-K on the $4.75 billion notes
- AMD Form 8-K on the World Labs deal
- AMD's $1 billion investment in Meta, on StockTitan
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