Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 2.37%) were surging last month after investors responded positively to the launch of its new Instinct MI300 accelerators designed to run advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models. The launch had been long anticipated by investors.
AMD stock also benefited from broader market gains during the month, partly in response to the Fed's forecast of lower interest rates in 2024. According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, the stock gained 22% in December.
As you can see from the chart below, AMD spiked 10% on Dec. 7 after its chip presentation and continued to rise from there.
AMD responds in AI
Rival Nvidia has dominated the market thus far for AI chips and components, only increasing the anticipation for the new MI300 and the rest of AMD's new product line. There's a shortage of Nvidia's H100 accelerators and other graphics processing units (GPUs), meaning there's a clear opportunity for AMD to step in.
AMD said the new MI300X accelerator offers industry-leading memory bandwidth for generative AI and top performance for large language model training and inference. AMD also projected that the new line of chips would generate $2 billion in revenue in 2024, which would significantly boost its data center business.
The company also showed off customers, including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, OpenAI, and Oracle, showing a solid customer base for the new product line. Later in the month, there was little company-specific news on AMD, but the stock seemed to benefit from the broader gains in the morning as the Fed forecast lower rates next year.
AMD also seemed to get a boost from better-than-expected results from Micron, the memory-chip maker considered a bellwether for the broader semiconductor market. Micron reported a return to revenue growth, though it still had a wide loss on the bottom line.
What's next for AMD in 2024
High expectations are baked into AMD's stock after shares more than doubled in 2023, and the $2 billion revenue forecast from the new MI300 shows that alone will only have a modest impact on the company's financial results. The semiconductor sector has been in a slump in the last year or two, and AMD reported just 4% revenue growth in its most recent quarter, but demand for its CPUs seems to be recovering as well.
Given the surge in demand for AI chips and the current shortage, AMD should find a niche to fill and remain a popular choice for tech investors.
