Advanced Micro Devices’ shares (AMD.O) jumped to an ​all-time high on Wednesday as its strong outlook boosted investor confidence about sustained demand for AI infrastructure, sparking a rally across ‌global semiconductor stocks.

AMD jumped 18.9 per cent and was set to add more than $110 billion in market value, if gains hold. Rival Intel (INTC.O) also rose 2.6 per cent to a record high, while chip designer Arm Holdings surged 9.8 per cent and chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM.O) gained 5.1 per cent.

Central processing units have taken center stage as companies and businesses gravitate towards agentic AI – ​systems that perform autonomous functions – broadening demand beyond graphics processing units, or GPUs, that are used to train large models.

Like rivals Nvidia ​and Intel, AMD late on Tuesday said a shift toward “inference,” where AI models are deployed in real-world applications, is ⁠opening up fresh opportunities for its server CPUs.

“Success invites competition, and while Nvidia held a monopoly on the AI chip market for two ​years, other players have been catching up. Simultaneously, the pie has grown, leaving room for growth,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.

AMD now ​expects the server CPU addressable market to grow by more than 35 per cent annually through 2030, up from a prior forecast of 18 per cent.

“AMD story is no longer just about having a GPU pipeline to challenge Nvidia… It’s increasingly about a broader compute opportunity, with CPUs and GPUs both playing a role as AI workloads become ​more demanding,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

At least 20 brokerages raised their price target on AMD stock, with Evercore ISI’s ​new target of $579 now the highest on Wall Street, according to LSEG data.

AMD trades at about 42.4 times forward earnings, well above its five-year average of ‌30 and ⁠nearly double Nvidia’s roughly 21 times multiple, despite the latter’s much larger AI market share.

The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) advanced 3.3 per cent on Wednesday to hit a fresh record high.

The index has already surged more than 59 per cent this year, including a more than 38 per cent jump in April alone, its best showing since at least October 2000, according to LSEG data.

Chipmakers that are part of the S&P 500 semiconductor index are expected to record a ​robust 109.8 per cent earnings growth for the ​first quarter, the highest among sub-sectors ⁠under the broader S&P 500 information technology sector, according to LSEG data.

Earlier in the day, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) became only the second Asian company to reach $1 trillion in market value, catapulted by an AI-powered rally. Rival SK ​Hynix’s (000660.KS) stock has also more than doubled in value so far this year.

European semiconductor giants ASML (ASML.AS) and ​ASMI (ASMI.AS) also climbed ⁠5 per cent and 2.9 per cent, respectively, on Wednesday.

SUPER MICRO RALLY SHRUGS OFF LEGAL CLOUDS

AI server maker Super Micro (SMCI.O) also surged 15.8 per cent after forecasting fourth-quarter revenue and profit above expectations, reassuring investors rattled by a recent US Justice Department case linked to illegal chip shipments to China.

The outlook underscores strong demand for Super Micro’s customizable, high performance ⁠AI servers ​from data-center operators and startups.

CEO Charles Liang said demand was also strong for its broader ​data-center and cloud software offerings, while production sites in Taiwan, Malaysia and the Netherlands are ramping up aggressively.

Rival Dell (DELL.N) rose 2.9 per cent, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE.N) inched 1 per cent lower.