On 21/9, shares of US chipmaker AMD rose 10% to 615.5 USD, pushing its market capitalization past 1 trillion USD for the first time.

AMD is the 4th US chipmaker to achieve this milestone, following Nvidia, Broadcom, and Micron. Nvidia reached this in 2023 and is currently the world's most valuable company, valued at over 5 trillion USD. AMD is widely regarded as Nvidia's closest competitor.

"Money is returning to the artificial intelligence (AI) sector", stated Thomas Hayes, President of Great Hill Capital. Over the past few months, enthusiasm for chipmakers had waned as the market doubted the profitability of companies' substantial AI investments. Elevated oil prices from the Middle East conflict and expectations of sustained high interest rates also pressured AI stocks.

However, investors now believe AI is the only sector capable of growth amid an economic slowdown caused by the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) interest rate hikes. Most chip stocks saw gains on the first trading day of the week, with Intel climbing over 12% and Qualcomm rising over 9%. The overall chip stock index increased 2.7%, reaching a one-month high.

AMD is accelerating the launch of AI products, shifting from selling individual chips to offering complete systems—combining processors, networking equipment, and related hardware—to compete with Nvidia. Growing demand for central processing units (CPUs) is also helping AMD gain market share from Intel.

Last month, AMD announced a quarterly revenue forecast exceeding Wall Street's expectations, though it still fell short of investors' very high expectations. This year, AMD's stock has surged 185%, significantly outpacing the Nasdaq Composite's 15.8% gain. The stock is currently among the market's top performers.

Ha Thu (according to Reuters)