Year-over-year, AMD’s gaming unit shed 31 percent of its revenue and finished at $779 million. Over that same stretch, the company’s data center arm more than doubled, reaching $6.7 billion. The two figures sit in the same earnings report, but only one of them dominated the call.
That $6.7 billion is a step up from Q1’s $5.8 billion, and a 107 percent climb over the $3.2 billion AMD posted a year earlier for the comparable period. Appetite for AI capacity is what’s driving it.
AMD isn’t forecasting a slowdown, either. Speaking on Tuesday’s earnings call, CEO Lisa Su said the company anticipates “data center segment revenue to more than double year-over-year in 2027.”
The gaming decline has a supply-chain explanation
Price hikes and component shortages held back sales of the Xbox Series X / S, PS5 and Valve’s Steam Deck — three of the highest-profile consoles and handhelds built around AMD silicon, all running into the same barrier at once.
Graphics cards ran into the identical problem. “Gaming graphics revenue also declined year-over-year, as higher industry-wide component costs contributed to higher graphics card prices and weighed on overall demand,” Su told analysts on a call held after the results went out.
The pricing half of that story is old news to anyone who has recently gone GPU shopping. What’s new is a revenue figure showing buyers actually backed out.
Where the growth actually sits
Data center accounted for 58 percent of total company revenue during the quarter. That’s the statistic worth pausing on, because it redefines what AMD has become.
“Revenue increased 50 percent year-over-year to a record $11.5 billion, driven by continued strength in our Data Center business, which represented 58% of company revenue in the quarter,” AMD CFO Jean Hu wrote.
Taken as a whole, the PC and gaming division was up six percent against last year. Client revenue rose 23 percent on the back of Ryzen processor sales — the piece of the consumer picture that is still holding together.
Su’s framing puts AI in every column
“AI is driving a significant expansion in demand for compute across all of our markets, and our leadership portfolio and growing customer visibility position us exceptionally well to capture this expanding opportunity and deliver substantial revenue and earnings growth in the years ahead,” said Su.
The phrase all of our markets is carrying a heavy load there. Gaming dropped 31 percent this quarter, and the reason given was component costs — not AI demand.
For anyone assembling gaming PCs or holding out for graphics card prices to fall, the figure that matters isn’t the 107 percent data center surge. It’s whether the industry-wide component costs Su pointed to loosen up ahead of AMD’s next report.