Rumor: AMD (AMD.US) raises prices across its entire chip lineup by 10%! Rising Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR wafer foundry costs are the main reason.

AMD (AMD.US) shares rose nearly 2% in pre-market trading on Friday, extending gains from the previous three consecutive trading sessions. This followed unconfirmed reports that the chipmaker has notified customers it will raise prices across its entire chip lineup by 10% starting in the fourth quarter. According to the reports, the price increase is related to rising manufacturing costs at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR (TSM.US). The vast majority of AMD's chips are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, citing persistently rising manufacturing costs, has notified customers of a roughly 10% increase in wafer foundry quotes. As rising wafer costs directly squeeze product gross margins, AMD has chosen to pass the cost pressure downstream. The reports also said AMD's price increase will cover multiple product categories, including AI accelerator chips, consumer-grade graphics processing units (GPUs), and motherboard chipsets. Although the reports did not explicitly mention AMD's Ryzen CPU, that CPU is also highly dependent on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR for manufacturing, so this round of price increases may also pass through to consumer-grade processors. It is worth noting that reports earlier this month indicated that Intel Corporation (INTC.US) plans to raise PC CPU prices by about 10% again on October 5, 2026. This would be Intel Corporation's third round of price increases since the end of 2025 roughly a 10% increase in the first quarter of 2026, followed by another increase in July on some consumer-grade and server-grade CPUs, with hikes ranging from tens of dollars to more than a thousand dollars. Supply chain sources pointed out that the direct reason for Intel Corporation's continued price increases in this round is rising overall supply chain costs and persistently strong demand for some products prices of key components such as memory and PCB materials have been rising, significantly squeezing profit margins across the entire PC supply chain. Although the industry generally expects the global PC market to decline slightly in 2027, Intel Corporation's countercyclical price hike at this time shows that its strategic focus has shifted from "trading price for volume" to "trading price for profit," and its PC CPU business profitability may be set for a recovery.