Investing.com – The good times are returning to data-center products as clients are set to ramp-up spending, likely leading to higher deamnd for AMD’s chips, RBC said as it upgraded its price target on the chipmaker Friday.
RBC upgraded its price target on shares of AMD to $50 from $44, touting improved prospects for the chipmaker, and forecasting its shares to rally above $40 by year end. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) rose 1%.
"We are raising our price target on AMD to reflect improving Data Center demand and increased conviction in share gains through 2020. While 2021 is admittedly unclear, we think 2020 has become more attractive," RBC said.
RBC also said the threat to AMD's competitive edge is limited, estimating that the chipmaker will not see a change of competition in a meaningful way until around the end of the third or fourth quarter next year.
The more somber outlook on data centers comes in the wake of bullish commentary form Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC).
Following its quarterly results yesterday, Nvidia said it expected a rise in conversational artificial intelligence to drive-data center growth. That echoed bullish sentiment from Intel, with the company’s chief financial officer, George Davis, telling Reuters in an interview last month that “data center came back much more strongly than even we anticipated this quarter.”
The increasing complexities of machine learning used to develop AI products will likely drive demand for hyperscale computing, boosting demand for data-center products from both Nvidia and Intel.
“Like Intel, Nvidia saw big demand from its hyperscale customers, undoubtedly driven by machine learning training and inference needs,” Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy said.