AMD says data center revenue more than doubled as it plans yearly rack-scale AI platforms

AMD reported second-quarter 2026 results that set a new revenue record, but the standout was its data center business: sales there more than doubled and rose to 58% of the company's total revenue. Gaming, by contrast, fell 31% year over year.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company is moving to a yearly cadence for rack-scale AI platforms. She said the next generations will keep improving performance, efficiency and total cost of ownership, with the first step being Helios.

Helios combines Epyc Venice CPUs, MI450-series GPUs, Pensando networking and ROCm software. AMD said the system is on pace to ship before Q3 2026, and that it can deliver up to 15% more throughput at the same rack power and up to 30% more tokens per dollar than competing solutions.

The company also named several major customers. AMD said Anthropic will deploy up to two gigawatts of MI450-series GPUs in Helios, while Microsoft will deploy Helios at scale on Azure. OpenAI was also listed among the customers tied to the company's AI push.

Su said AMD expects the data center segment to more than double again year over year in 2027. For now, though, the numbers show where the company's momentum is coming from: AI infrastructure is soaring while gaming is moving in the opposite direction.

Does AMD's yearly AI platform plan make the gaming decline look like a temporary dip, or a longer shift in priorities?