September 21, 2026
The $1 trillion chipmakers' club gains a member: AMD reaches $1 trillion before Intel
On September 21, AMD shares gained 9% to $613,92, and the company crossed $1 trillion for the first time.
The $600-per-share mark is written into AMD's agreement with OpenAI. On Monday, the price reached $613,92.
AMD's trillion-dollar market cap was built not on today's sales, but on promised deliveries: OpenAI and Anthropic have contracted for 8 GW of Instinct accelerators.
A club of four. Previously, only Nvidia in 2023, then Broadcom and Micron, had reached a trillion among US chipmakers. AMD is now fourth, while Intel is worth $644 billion and has not joined the club. Nvidia was worth $5,4 trillion that day, more than five times AMD's value.
It lifted the whole industry. Monday's trigger was a supply-chain report: AMD was reportedly set to raise prices by 10% in the fourth quarter for AI accelerators, consumer GPUs, and motherboard chipsets because TSMC wafer prices were rising. AMD itself has not confirmed this. That same day, ARM gained 12%, Intel 11%, and Nvidia just 0,4%.
Over the year, the shares rose by more than 180%; over the last five trading sessions, by 24%.
What supports the rise. In the second quarter of 2026, AMD earned $11,54 billion, up from $7,69 billion a year earlier. Its data center division generated $6,7 billion, 107% more than last year. Lisa Su expects data center solution sales to double by 2027.
The agreement with OpenAI gives it the right to buy up to 160 million AMD shares for one cent each. Tranches unlock as purchases are made; the final target price reaches $600 per share, and full vesting occurs after 6 GW of Instinct accelerators and no later than October 5, 2030. On full exercise, OpenAI will receive about 10% of AMD.
Anthropic's agreement is smaller: up to 2 GW of MI455X in Helios racks, with the first gigawatt in the first half of 2027. AMD is investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic itself, while Claude there optimizes workloads for Instinct and speeds up ROCm development.
Before the surge, the price had already hit consensus: on September 19, the average target of 47 analysts stood at $565,13, just 0,9% above the $559,82 close. One trading day consumed their entire annual upside. By publication, the stock had pulled back to $609, while market cap held around $998 billion.
The first gigawatt of MI450 for OpenAI is promised for the second half of 2026.
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