Super Micro Computer SMCI and Advanced Micro Devices AMD are two important companies serving the AI data centers and hyperscalers. While Advanced Micro Devices develops AI graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs), SMCI uses these chips and adds them with cooling systems to develop racks that sit inside data centers.
As the AI data center market is likely to witness a CAGR of 31.6% from 2025 to 2030, reaching a market size of $934 billion in this timeframe, per a report by MarketsAndMarkets, both SMCI and AMD are likely to benefit from it. Given the growth opportunity, let’s discuss the scope, fundamentals and financials of the two stocks to understand which one would be a better investment at present.
The Case for SMCI Stock
SMCI is benefiting from AI infrastructure demand by AI data centers, hyperscalers, AI-fabs and enterprise customers. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, SMCI generated $10.7 billion in revenues from the OEM appliance and large data center segment, representing approximately 84% of the top line. This makes SMCI well-positioned to reach a $40 billion revenue goal in fiscal 2026, given its edge in the AI server and storage market.
SMCI’s DCBBS accounted for 4% of Super Micro Computer’s profit in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, and the company expects the contribution to rise to double digits by the end of 2026. SMCI’s majority of revenues is now driven by its rack-scale solutions. SMCI, in its second-quarter fiscal 2026, reported that it scaled up to an internal power capacity of 63 megawatts.
SMCI is on track to scale up its rack capacity to 6,000 units per month, including 3,000 direct liquid cooling racks by the end of fiscal 2026, as the demand for these products rises to support AI and HPC workloads with use cases like AI training, enterprise AI inference, visualization and design, content delivery and virtualization and AI edge.
Backed by these strong tailwinds, Super Micro Computer has been delivering consistently strong revenue momentum over the past several quarters, underscoring the surging demand for its solutions. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, SMCI’s top line surged an impressive 122% year over year, highlighting the company’s exceptional growth trajectory.
However, SMCI’s revenue streams are heavily dependent on the AI industry, with AI GPU platforms contributing more than 90% of revenues. This exposes SMCI to the boom and bust cycles of a single industry. Since SMCI works in a capex-heavy industry, its inventory has also surged to $10.6 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 from $5.7 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 and $4.7 billion at the end of fiscal 2025. The Zacks Consensus Estimates for SMCI’s earnings have been revised downward by 3 cents in the past 60 days.
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The Case for AMD Stock
Advanced Micro Devices offers custom silicon solutions and AI accelerator space with its semi-custom SoC offerings and Instinct Accelerators that power numerous data centers. Advanced Micro Devices’ reconfigurable Alveo Adaptable Accelerator Cards are used to speed up compute-intensive applications in data centers.
AMD’s EPYC is gaining from strong server CPU demand on the back of infrastructure ramp-up by hyperscalers as cloud usage grows for AI. EPYC 4005 Series and AMD Helios have also been integrated in SMCI’s server systems, making AMD one of the key enablers of SMCI alongside NVIDIA.
Advanced Micro Devices is gaining traction in the data center AI business. The company delivered record Instinct GPU revenues in the fourth quarter of 2025, led by strong demand for MI 350 Series. AMD’s data center AI business prospects are expected to accelerate with the upcoming MI450 series, which forms the crux of the 6-gigawatt (GWs) deal inked between AMD and Meta Platforms.
AMD Helios is in high demand, as evident from Advanced Micro Devices’ deals with OpenAI for deployment of 6-GWs of instinct GPUs, HPE’s plan to offer Helios racks with purpose-built HPE Juniper Ethernet switches and optimized software for high bandwidth scale-up networking, and Lenovo’s announced Helios racks offering.
AMD is well diversified in the client end with both SMCI and HPE as its clients. This keeps AMD’s revenues stable while also growing explosively. AMD expects its data center AI revenues to see a CAGR of more than 80% over the next three to five years. The bottom line is also strong. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AMD’s fiscal 2026 earnings shows year-over-year growth of 61.4%, with estimates being revised upward in the past seven days.
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Stock Price Performance and Valuation of SMCI & VRT
Shares of AMD have gained 29.9%, while SMCI has declined 3% in the year-to-date period.
YTD Performance Chart
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SMCI is trading at a forward 12-month Price to Sales ratio of 0.37X, which is lower than its median of 0.67X. AMD is trading at a forward sales multiple of 9.13X, higher than its median of 7.29X.
SMCI Forward 12-Month (P/S) Valuation Chart
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Conclusion: SMCI vs. AMD Stock
Both SMCI and AMD are gaining from the rising AI data center demand. However, AMD seems to be the key enabler for SMCI as its chips sit inside SMCI’s server racks. Considering these factors, we suggest to investors that AMD seems to be a wise investment choice among the two.
SMCI and AMD carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) each at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
#1 Semiconductor Stock to Buy (Not NVDA)
The incredible demand for data is fueling the market's next digital gold rush. As data centers continue to be built and constantly upgraded, the companies that provide the hardware for these behemoths will become the NVIDIAs of tomorrow.
One under-the-radar chipmaker is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the next growth stage of this market. It specializes in semiconductor products that titans like NVIDIA don't build. It's just beginning to enter the spotlight, which is exactly where you want to be.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).