Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is suddenly the talk of the AI chip town. The stock has gained over 30% in the last five days while NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) lost 11% as it grappled with CEO Jensen Huang's departure. That's a pretty dramatic reversal of fortune for a company that spent years playing second fiddle in the AI accelerator race.

Experts are pointing to improving products, expanding share opportunities and a favorable supply position heading into 2027. The narrative is shifting from "AMD is trying" to "AMD is actually competing."

Goldberg Sees AMD As A More Formidable Nvidia Rival

Seaport Research's Jay Goldberg told CNBC on Friday that AMD now offers "formidable products" that compete more effectively with NVIDIA. He said AMD and Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) had already started gaining share before NVIDIA's leadership turmoil, and he believes uncertainty around NVIDIA could accelerate customers' efforts to diversify chip sourcing.

Goldberg stopped short of saying NVIDIA has lost its dominant position, but he said AMD has moved beyond merely gaining a foothold and now represents a more credible competitive threat. In other words, this isn't just a sympathy trade. It's a real shift in how the market views the competitive landscape.

McGough Sees More Room For AMD To Fill The Gap

Prime Capital Financial CIO Will McGough told CNBC on Friday that NVIDIA's leadership transition could give AMD and Broadcom more room to capture demand. He highlighted Anthropic's use of AMD chips and said the market is reassessing NVIDIA's competitive moat as alternative suppliers become more capable.

McGough also noted that Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Chinese chipmakers are developing their own silicon, adding to the pressure on NVIDIA and creating a broader opportunity for AMD to compete for AI workloads. The moat, as he sees it, is looking a little shallower than it did a few months ago.

Counterpoint Sees Data Center Driving AMD's Next Leg

Counterpoint Research said on Thursday that AMD's third-quarter revenue rose 45% year over year to $13.4 billion, while data-center revenue climbed 97% to $8.5 billion and represented 64% of total revenue. That's a staggering growth rate for a segment that was once an afterthought.

Counterpoint expects data center to exceed 80% of AMD revenue in 2027 and estimates roughly $77 billion of data-center revenue that year. It said AMD's fourth-quarter revenue guidance of about $17 billion stands roughly $800 million above consensus, with data-center revenue expected to grow about 50% sequentially.

Counterpoint also expects AMD's server business to roughly double in 2027, while data-center AI revenue should more than double. The research firm said AMD's data-center advantage over Intel Corp. (INTC) currently comes from AI GPUs and racks rather than CPUs, but it expects meaningful x86 server-share gains in 2027 as AMD scales shipments.

Counterpoint added that AMD has secured Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSM) supply to support its projected growth, making execution and the ability to ship—not demand—the central question for 2027. That's a crucial distinction. Demand is clearly there. The question is whether AMD can actually deliver the goods.

AMD Price Action: Advanced Micro Devices shares were down 2.36% at $571.47 during premarket trading on Friday, according to market data.