ASML Holding NV ADR writes the prosperity of AI computing power into its 2028 expansion plans! Wall Street is betting on AMD (AMD.US) with CPU + GPU dominance in the AI inference era.

In recent times, Wall Street's bullish sentiment towards AMD, the biggest competitor of NVIDIA Corporation AI GPU, is growing stronger. Financial giants like Bank of America Corp, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, and Barclays have recently upgraded their ratings or raised their price targets for AMD. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc recently raised AMD's target price from $450 to $640 and maintained a "buy" rating. Another institution, Cantor Fitzgerald, raised the target price to $700 (from $500), while KeyBanc raised the target price to $725 and maintained a "hold" rating. The core bullish logic of Wall Street analysts is not just about catching up with NVIDIA Corporation in the AI GPU market share, but about the proxy AI wave driving a comprehensive explosion in AI CPU demand. With the narrowing ratio of CPU to GPU, AMD, with its data center server-level CPUs, AI accelerators, Helios rack-scale server clusters, and cloud customer base, is expected to become one of the most important beneficiaries in the AI computing infrastructure, second only to NVIDIA Corporation. The bullish logic on Wall Street has evolved from the early belief that AMD is the second AI GPU training/inference accelerator supplier after NVIDIA Corporation, expanding to three super growth curves resonating with server CPUs, AI GPUs, and large-scale rack-level server clusters. Analysts are betting that AMD, with its CPU+GPU capacity, will jointly lead the pricing power of AI computing infrastructure in the era of AI inference with the AI chip superpower NVIDIA Corporation. Recently, AMD signed a significant final agreement with Rackspace Technology to deploy the first batch of 30MW of artificial intelligence computing infrastructure based on AMD technology in Rackspace's global data centers. This legally binding contract formalizes the preliminary memorandum of understanding announced by the two companies in May. The AI computing power plan will be phased in operation from the end of 2026 to 2028. The deployment will allow regulated enterprise workloads to use AMD Instinct AI GPUs and AMD EPYC central processors (CPUs) in Rackspace's enterprise AI cloud architecture and AI agent deployment workflow. Rackspace Technology CEO Jagan Kanadiya stated that the collaboration integrates AI computing infrastructure with regulated governance operations, provided by a partner assuming unified responsibility. Dan McNamara, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AMD Computing and Enterprise AI, stated that the collaboration will help regulated enterprises deploy scalable AI computing infrastructure. The two companies also jointly committed to investing in joint sales and marketing resources to attract enterprise customers in regulated industries. As the AI wave sweeps the world, the investment theme in AI computing is shifting from the GPU-centered single-point computing race to the "Agentic AI-driven full-stack computing system." The next round of excess alpha returns will no longer be limited to the strongest players in the AI GPU/AI ASIC sector but will systematically spread to high-performance data center CPUs, DRAM/NAND/HBM storage, AI PCBs, liquid cooling systems, data center optical interconnection systems, ABF substrates/glass substrates, MLCCs, electronic fabrics, and wide-range wafer foundries that form the full-stack AI computing infrastructure layer. In this narrative shift, data center CPUs, optical interconnects, and storage chips may emerge as the biggest winners. The global AI computing demand outlook is increasingly optimistic, with the recent performance of ASML Holding NV ADR providing more forward-looking evidence of industry prospects than a single AI chip company's orders. ASML Holding NV ADR reported a second-quarter revenue of 9.326 billion euros, exceeding the market's expectations of 8.8 billion euros, with a net profit of 2.918 billion euros and a gross profit margin of 54%. Importantly, the company raised its revenue guidance for 2026 from 36-40 billion euros to 43-45 billion euros and raised its gross margin guidance from 51-53% to 54-56%. The company expects third-quarter revenue to further increase to 11-12 billion euros. The management of ASML Holding NV ADR described the orders in the first half of the year as extremely strong, with customers accelerating the construction of advanced process logic chips and storage chips, planning to increase the capacity of deep ultraviolet lithography and immersion deep ultraviolet lithography machines by about 30% by 2027 and consider an additional 30% increase by 2028. This means that major wafer factory customers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR and Intel Corporation have voted for strong demand for AI computing power in 2027-2028 through long-term lithography equipment commitments. On the other hand, IBM's performance warning from the demand side proves that the AI computing infrastructure purchasing frenzy is expanding from large-scale cloud vendors to traditional business operation models. IBM disclosed that customers are shifting their quarterly capital budgets from software projects to core hardware purchases related to AI infrastructure to avoid continued shortages and price increases of key AI computing infrastructure components such as AI chips, server CPUs, storage, and memory chips. This led to revenues of only $17.2 billion, below the market's expectations of $17.86 billion, and a single-day stock price decline of about 25%. Intel Corporation's investment logic is undergoing a fundamental change: the market no longer sees it simply as a traditional consumer electronics central processing unit manufacturer waiting for a PC cycle recovery but is re-evaluating it as a full-stack AI computing infrastructure platform based on data center server CPUs, advanced chip manufacturing, and packaging. This is why HSBC has raised its target price for Intel Corporation by 100% to $200, the highest target price for Intel Corporation among Wall Street analysts. This would reposition Intel Corporation as a trillion-dollar chip giant in the eyes of international retail and institutional investors. With Intel Corporation's stock price around $107.76 on July 15 and a market capitalization of about $547.7 billion, a $200 target price implies a potential upside of about 85.6%. Assuming the float remains relatively unchanged, the corresponding market capitalization would be around $1.02 trillion, indicating that Intel Corporation may re-enter the ranks of trillion-dollar chip giants. As AI agents rapidly gain popularity globally, spending on AI infrastructure from cloud computing giants and AI leaders accelerates, and global AI data center computing infrastructure is booming. Wall Street is making increasingly bullish bets not only on AMD but also on the other x86 CPU giant, Intel Corporation. With the explosion in data center CPU demand, several financial giants on Wall Street have significantly raised their 12-month target prices for the two x86 architecture CPU super giants, Intel Corporation and AMD. These financial giants have also raised their expectations for the data center CPU and overall CPU market size in their latest research reports. At the 54th annual Global Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Conference hosted by Morgan Stanley, Intel Corporation CEO Pat Gelsinger stated that Intel's 18A (advanced chips below 2nm) is supporting the mass production of Panther Lake, with a monthly yield increase of about 7%, significantly above Intel's internal expectations. Gelsinger also mentioned that as the focus of AI computing shifts from training to inference, the importance of CPUs in the AI era is increasing. The ratio of CPU to GPU is converging from 1:8 to 1:1 and could even reach 4:1. The investment logic surrounding Intel Corporation is undergoing a fundamental change: it is no longer seen as a traditional consumer electronics CPU manufacturer waiting for a PC cycle recovery but is being revalued as a full-stack AI computing infrastructure platform based on data center CPUs, advanced chip manufacturing, and packaging. This is why HSBC raised its target price for Intel Corporation to $200, a 100% increase, making it the highest target price for Intel Corporation among Wall Street analysts. This reevaluation positions Intel Corporation as one of the most-watched semiconductor stocks among global retail and institutional investors. In the midst of the global popularity of AI agents, the rapid expansion of spending on AI infrastructure by cloud computing giants and AI leaders, as well as the intense development of global AI data center computing power, HSBC's aggressive bullish judgment is based on the belief that Intel Corporation will benefit from the increasing demand for data center CPUs driven by AI agents and the global surge in AI semiconductor production capacity led by Musk's Terafab "superchip factory." In conclusion, Wall Street's analysts see AMD and Intel Corporation not only as competitors in the AI computing market but as key players in the evolving landscape of AI infrastructure. The optimistic sentiment towards these companies reflects the growing demand for AI computing power and the shift towards a more diversified and comprehensive approach to AI infrastructure.