Applied Materials and Advanced Micro Devices are benefiting from the same artificial-intelligence investment cycle, but they occupy different parts of the semiconductor industry. Applied Materials sells equipment and services used to manufacture chips, while AMD develops processors, graphics units and related software that power data centers, personal computers and other systems.
Applied Materials reported record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $9. 12 billion for the period ended July 26, up 25% from a year earlier. The company said its EPIC Center research-and-development network had expanded to 11 partnerships and lifted its expectations for semiconductor-systems revenue growth in calendar 2026.
The equipment maker’s results were supported by demand tied to DRAM, leading-edge foundry and logic production, and advanced packaging. It introduced six systems aimed at those areas, including tools for high-bandwidth-memory production, copper plating and three-dimensional chip stacking.
AMD’s second quarter, ended June 27, showed faster top-line expansion. Data Center revenue more than doubled to $6. 7 billion and represented the main source of growth, driven by EPYC server processors and Instinct accelerators.
AMD has been broadening its AI platform beyond individual chips. It launched the Helios rack-scale system, introduced its Instinct MI400 family and announced collaborations involving Anthropic, Microsoft and Cerebras. The Anthropic agreement covers a potential deployment of up to two gigawatts of MI450-series graphics processors in Helios systems, while Microsoft plans to deploy Helios racks through Azure and add AMD-powered server offerings.
Those figures are management expectations rather than completed results and remain exposed to semiconductor cyclicality, export rules, manufacturing capacity, customer concentration and the ability of third-party suppliers to deliver components on schedule.
AMD offers more direct participation in the expansion of AI computing and has recently posted substantially faster revenue growth, but its results depend heavily on winning designs and deployments against powerful competitors. Applied Materials benefits when chipmakers expand capacity and adopt more complex manufacturing and packaging processes, giving it a broader equipment-and-services position but tying results to customers’ capital-spending cycles.
On the verified operating figures available in 2026, AMD has the stronger growth profile, while Applied Materials combines record results with a sizable services business, expanding equipment demand and shareholder distributions. Neither company’s reported performance alone establishes which stock will deliver the better return; valuation, execution and the durability of AI-related capital spending remain decisive factors for the investment case.