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AMD stock climbed about 12% Friday on no company-specific news, lifted instead by Intel's quarterly earnings report, which showed unexpectedly strong demand for central processing units from companies building out artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Multiple Wall Street analysts responded to Intel's report by upgrading AMD, viewing the CPU tailwinds as broadly favorable for the sector. Barron's noted that Arm Holdings shares gained 11% on the day as well.

Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson moved his AMD rating to buy from neutral, setting a new price target of $375, up from $220. In a research note, he quoted the direct language that "The CPU is reinserting itself as an indispensable foundation of the AI era, and the once sleepy CPU market has taken off as agentic workloads shift compute needs" beyond graphics processing units, adding that Intel's report amounted to "a precursor for a huge step-up for AMD's CPU franchise."

The shift driving CPU demand reflects a broader change in how AI is being deployed. As the industry moves from training large language models toward AI agents that use those models to execute tasks โ€” a stage known as inference โ€” CPUs have become a more critical component of AI infrastructure.

Citi analyst Atif Malik, who lifted his Intel rating to buy from neutral following the report, flagged a striking revision in the company's own server CPU forecast: where Intel had projected only marginal unit growth six months earlier, it is now calling for double-digit growth through 2026.

Jefferies, which boosted its Intel price target ahead of the earnings release, argued that AMD could be an even bigger beneficiary of the CPU upcycle than Intel itself. Citing AMD's upcoming Venice chips as a key catalyst, the firm's analysts wrote that "INTC noted double-digit server unit growth with momentum extending into 2027 but AMD likely sees even better growth." Jefferies holds a buy rating on AMD with a $300 price target; Intel remains at hold.

Not everyone read Intel's quarter as a clean positive for AMD. Joseph Moore of Morgan Stanley cautioned that the earnings strength appeared to stem from supply limitations rather than any meaningful shift in competitive positioning between the two CPU rivals. The firm rates both stocks equal weight. Even so, Moore did not dismiss the rally's staying power, writing that the CPU "music is likely to keep playing for a while, as there is no indication that supply catches up to demand."