AMD's Lisa Su Predicts Five-Year CPU Demand Surge Driven by AI Agents

A Five-Year Runway for CPUs

AMD CEO Lisa Su has told an industry forum in Taipei that demand for central processing units is running well ahead of expectations and is likely to keep doing so for at least the next five years. Speaking against a backdrop of soaring chip stocks and tightening global supply, Su described the current cycle as 'significantly higher demand than any of us predicted a year ago'. The remarks are notable because much of the AI conversation over the past three years has focused almost exclusively on GPUs. Su is now arguing that the traditional 4-to-5:1 ratio of GPUs to CPUs inside AI data centres will compress towards a roughly even split as workloads shift.

Agentic AI Is the Catalyst

The driver, according to Su, is the rise of agentic AI, software that does not simply answer a question but plans, reasons, calls tools and chains actions together. These workloads lean heavily on general-purpose compute, not just matrix multiplication. AMD reported data centre revenue of $5.8 billion in the first quarter, up 57% year-over-year, with Su crediting agents for 'propelling extraordinary demand within the overall AI adoption cycle'. To keep up, the company has asked its manufacturing partners in Taiwan to ramp up production capacity as global CPU supply tightens.

Bank of America Raises the Stakes

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya has lifted the firm's server CPU total addressable market projection to $125 billion by 2030, up from $110 billion previously, implying a 31% compound annual growth rate. The bank now expects Intel and AMD to each hold roughly 28% of server CPU market value by the end of the decade. Sitting above that, BofA also raised its 2026 global semiconductor revenue target to $1.3 trillion, a $300 billion jump from its forecast just four months earlier.

A Breakout Year for the Stock

AMD shares have more than doubled in 2026, touching an all-time high above $469 in mid-May. In one striking week, AMD, Intel and Micron Technology all gained around 25%, with each more than doubling year-to-date. Mizuho analyst Jordan Klein has called the move a potential 'changing of the guard' in chip stocks as investors broaden their attention beyond Nvidia. New Mercury Research data also showed AMD's EPYC processors hitting a record 46.2% of x86 server CPU revenue share in the first quarter, underscoring how quickly the competitive landscape is shifting.