AMD’s data center business passed a milestone in the second quarter: it generated more than half of total revenue for the first time in company history, more than doubling year over year.
The company reported record revenue of $11.5 billion for Q2 2026, up 50 percent from $7.7 billion a year earlier and 13 percent from the first quarter. The data center segment contributed $6.7 billion, a 107 percent jump from $3.2 billion in the same period of 2025, driven by demand for EPYC server processors and Instinct accelerators. Chief financial officer Jean Hu said in the earnings release that the segment represented 58 percent of company revenue in the quarter.
The rest of the business tells a more mixed story. Gaming revenue fell 31 percent year over year to $779 million, dragged down by lower semi-custom console chip sales. Client revenue (desktop and laptop processors) rose 23 percent to $3.1 billion on strong Ryzen demand, and the embedded segment grew 19 percent to $977 million.
Profitability improved alongside the top line. GAAP gross margin hit 54 percent, with operating profit of $2.0 billion and net profit of $2.3 billion, or $1.38 per diluted share. Strip out one-time items and the numbers get stronger: a 56 percent margin, $3.1 billion in operating profit, and EPS of $1.66.
CEO Lisa Su described the quarter as excellent on both revenue and profitability, framing the second half around accelerating EPYC demand, scaling Instinct deployments, and the initial ramp of the Helios rack-scale system. She also pointed to AI as driving a broad expansion of compute demand across every market AMD serves. Hu said the company anticipates even faster data center growth in the latter half of the year.
The quarter did little to dent Nvidia’s dominance at the top of the AI chip market, but it cements AMD’s position as the credible second source that hyperscalers are increasingly willing to buy from. The bets AMD placed on AI infrastructure are now showing up in the most visible place possible: the income statement.
Sources: AMD Reports Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results (AMD, Aug 4, 2026); AMD’s datacenter business is booming while gaming takes a backseat (The Verge, Aug 4, 2026); AMD earnings report Q2 2026 (CNBC, Aug 4, 2026)