BNP Paribas Just Hiked AMD’s Price Target 60% to $960
BNP Paribas just broke sharply with Wall Street consensus on AMD, and the reasoning goes far beyond AI chips into a market most investors have not yet priced in.
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BNP Paribas analyst Karl Ackerman raised his price target on AMD (NASDAQ:AMD | AMD Price Prediction) to $960 from $600 and kept his Outperform rating. His argument is that the chipmaker has grown from a silicon supplier into a full-stack AI systems platform. The note comes with AMD stock at $630.88, up 194.58% year to date. Ackerman’s target assumes AMD wins share in both AI GPUs and agentic CPUs, the processors that run autonomous AI agents.
| Ticker | Company | Firm | Action | Old Rating | New Rating | Old Target | New Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | AMD | BNP Paribas | Price Target Raised | Outperform | Outperform | $600 | $960 |
Analyst’s Case Rests on Helios and Agentic CPUs
Ackerman wrote that “AMD is increasingly becoming a leading provider of AI infrastructure, successfully pivoting from a silicon pure-play to a full-stack systems platform.” His main points:
- Agentic CPUs: A new model supports estimates above consensus, with AMD taking a growing share of an agentic CPU market of about $245 billion by 2030.
- Helios: AMD’s rack-scale system is now a “credible” second source of AI hardware, supported by 14 gigawatts of commitments.
- GPU share: OpenAI, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and Anthropic have signed multi-gigawatt deals, and Ackerman thinks AMD can take at least 8% of the >$1T 2030 GPU market.
- Custom silicon: AMD expects ASICs and XPUs to make up roughly 25% of the accelerator market over time. The Cerebras partnership and the Taalas acquisition help AMD build a position there.
Company Snapshot: Data Center Now Drives the Story
Second-quarter revenue came in at $11.54 billion, up 50.1% from a year earlier and ahead of the $11.31B consensus. Non-GAAP EPS of $1.66 beat the $1.61 estimate. Data Center revenue rose 107% to $6.72B and now makes up 58% of sales. Gaming was the weak spot, falling 31%.
Management guided third-quarter revenue to about $13 billion (±$300M). It also expects Data Center revenue to “more than double year-over-year in 2027.” CEO Lisa Su called this “the early innings of a multi-year AI adoption cycle.”
Why the Move Matters Now
The stock already trades above the consensus target of $619.51, which puts BNP’s $960 call well above most of its peers on Wall Street. Of the analysts covering AMD, 39 rate it Buy, five Strong Buy, and 11 Hold, with no Sell ratings.
Earnings estimates are rising. The 2027 EPS consensus is now $15.5833, up from $13.1770 90 days ago. Over the past 30 days, 33 analysts raised their estimates, and 3 cut them. The stock trades at about 40 times forward earnings.
What It Means for Your Portfolio
BNP’s revised outlook is worth studying, but near-term volatility remains a real risk. AMD’s beta is 2.476, meaning the stock has historically moved more than twice as much as the broader market. It pays no dividend. AMD’s filings flag several risks: U.S. export controls on AI accelerators, memory supply constraints, tariffs, and the cyclical nature of the chip industry.
Key things to track:
- Helios shipments, which management says will “step up” in the fourth quarter
- Whether results match third-quarter guidance
- Anthropic’s first gigawatt, which is scheduled to start deploying in the first half of 2027
Those milestones will show whether the gigawatt commitments behind BNP’s target turn into actual revenue. All of that compute still has to be powered, cooled, and networked by somebody, and we rounded up seven of those suppliers in a free report on the AI buildout beyond the chipmakers.
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After two decades of patrolling the dark corners of suburbia as a police officer, Rich Duprey hung up his badge and gun to begin writing full time about stocks and investing. For the past 20 years, he’s been cruising the markets looking for companies to lock up as long-term holdings in a portfolio while writing extensively on the broad sectors of consumer goods, technology, and industrials. Because his experience isn’t from the typical financial analyst track, Rich is able to break down complex topics into understandable and useful action points for the average investor. His writings have appeared on The Motley Fool, InvestorPlace, Yahoo! Finance, Money Morning, and, of course, 24/7 Wall St. He has been featured in both U.S. and international publications, including MarketWatch, Financial Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and USA Today.
