Supermicro data center sales surge to ease AI spending concerns, briefly rose 8% after hours

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced its third-quarter results and latest financial forecast on Tuesday (3rd). Driven by a surge in data center sales, it is expected to grow faster than expected in 2027. The relevant report effectively refuted people's concerns that the AI ​​boom is losing momentum and eased investor concerns after rival Intel released its outlook last week, pushing AMD's stock price to rise by 8% in after-hours trading.

Comprehensive foreign media reports, Supermicro's financial report shows that this year's Q3 data center revenue soared 97%, reaching a record high of US$8.55 billion (approximately NT$281.380 billion), exceeding the previously expected US$8.2 billion (approximately NT$269.861 billion). Q4 revenue is expected to be US$17 billion (approximately NT$559.469 billion), plus or minus 3%, which easily exceeds analysts’ average forecast of US$16.3 billion (approximately NT$536.433 billion).

CEO Su Zifeng said that the company expects overall revenue to grow by more than 80% in 2027, which is higher than the 77% growth expected by analysts. Su told analysts that 80% of sales next year will come from data centers, which will drive most of the revenue and profit growth. It can be seen that data center business, CPU business and data center AI business all have demand. Judging from the speed and pace of growth, we have been preparing for this in the past few years.

The outlook provides new evidence that spending on AI is sustainable, reassuring anxious investors. Shares of chipmakers and other technology companies have been hammered in recent weeks on worries about a bubble in the AI ​​infrastructure industry.

Jacob Bourne, an analyst at eMarketer, a market research company, pointed out in the report that AMD’s earnings are not only a test of its own performance, but also a test of the entire AI industry. These results will be encouraging for investors as they increasingly focus on AI spending and returns due to the recent sell-off in the technology and semiconductor industries.

AMD's outlook, coupled with strong forecasts from server maker Super Micro Computer, fueled after-hours gains for AI equipment makers and cloud service providers.

Under Su's leadership, AMD has become one of the most important suppliers of core processors and computers for AI facilities, supporting a host of new services. Despite the recent market turmoil, AMD's stock price has more than doubled this year, and the company's market value reached US$1 trillion (approximately NT$32.91 trillion) in September.

Growth in the data center business has helped AMD offset a downturn in the PC market, where rising memory chip costs have slowed production and curbed user demand. Intel, AMD's main rival in the field, suffered its worst share price drop in decades after it posted disappointing earnings last week.

As AMD continues to achieve great results, sales today are twice what they were two years ago. AMD also outperformed long-time rival Intel in the central processing unit (CPU) market. However, AMD still lags far behind Huida in terms of AI accelerators used to train and run AI models.