AMD’s and Google’s Relationship Is Just Getting Started, Analyst Predicts barrons.com
The back story. On Tuesday, AMD stock soared 11.8% as Alphabet ’s Google confirmed it is using AMD (ticker: AMD) graphics technology for its coming Stadia cloud-gaming service. The custom-made AMD graphics cards in Google’s data centers will be more powerful than Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft ’s (MSFT) Xbox One X consoles, Google (GOOGL) said during a presentation at the Game Developers Conference.
AMD makes processors that act as the main computing brains for PCs, servers, and graphics cards, competing with Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA).
What’s new. Cowen analyst Matthew Ramsay on Tuesday reaffirmed his Outperform rating for AMD stock, predicting Google may use the semiconductor company’s server chips in 2019.
“Perhaps more important than today’s announcement in isolation, we believe the increasing collaboration between AMD and Google points to a future partnership for 7nm Rome server CPUs later this year,” he wrote. “We believe Rome server will be the next announcement.”
AMD stock gained another 1.3% to $26.34 on Wednesday.
In December, Barron’s suggested AMD could be a big winner in the cloud-computing server-chip market in 2019 because it has a promising lineup of products scheduled for release.
Late last year, AMD unveiled its next-generation seven-nanometer (nm) server chip, called Rome, which will be launched in mid-2019. Intel’s first chips based on 10 nm technology won’t ship until the 2019 holiday season. Smaller-nanometer manufacturing processes have historically allowed semiconductor companies to create faster, more power-efficient chips. |