Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD, XETRA:AMD) hosts its Advancing AI 2026 event next week in San Francisco, its first dedicated AI day since June 2025 when it launched its MI350 series GPUs and previewed its Helios rack system.
Jefferies analysts expect AMD to raise its addressable market estimate for AI CPUs above $200 billion, topping the figure Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) (Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD)) gave in May. They are also watching for more detail on AMD's next-generation MI500 GPUs and scale-up roadmap, along with any new customer announcements.
New customer announcements have been the biggest swing factor at AMD's past two AI events. The firm's Asia supply chain checks suggest Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) (Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT)) is now a customer for AMD's MI400 series GPUs, joining previously disclosed customers OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) (Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB)).
The analysts said expectations center on a potential Anthropic announcement, noting reports that the AI company has been hiring engineers with ROCm experience, which they said suggests Anthropic is preparing to diversify its computing infrastructure.
Jefferies cautioned that deal economics matter more than any headline, noting AMD has already committed 20% of the company to OpenAI and Meta, so future deals would need smaller incentive packages.
A more traditional Anthropic agreement would reinforce confidence in AMD's ability to compete without equity incentives, the analysts said.
Jefferies expects new disclosure on the MI500 series, previewed at CES 2026 as CDNA 6 architecture on an advanced 2nm process with HBM4E memory targeted for 2027, with a claimed 1,000-times AI performance uplift versus an eight-GPU MI300X node.
The analysts expect the MI500 platform to move to a native Ultra Accelerator Link scale-up domain with 256 GPUs per rack, which may require optical interconnects.
Jefferies is watching for confirmation of a co-packaged optics approach and its supplier, noting AMD's investment in Ayar Labs and its work with Astera Labs Inc (NASDAQ:ALAB) on Ultra Accelerator Link and Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO, XETRA:1YD) (Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO, XETRA:1YD)) on scale-up networking.