Bank of America has lifted its server CPU market forecast to $125 billion by 2030, up from a prior estimate of $110 billion, and named AMD and Nvidia as its two preferred chip stocks to benefit from the shift.
The updated outlook is driven by the rise of agentic AI — systems that plan tasks, retrieve data, manage memory, and run multi-step workflows. BofA analyst Vivek Arya, who ranks 94th out of more than 12,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks, says this type of AI is more CPU-dependent than previous generations.
The bank projects a compound annual growth rate of 31% for the server CPU market between 2026 and 2030, starting from a base of roughly $43 billion.
During the early AI boom, GPUs handled most of the heavy lifting in model training. But as AI systems become more complex, CPUs are being called on to coordinate tasks, manage state, and interact with databases and retrieval systems.
BofA describes CPUs as the “control plane” of AI inference, meaning they handle the orchestration layer that keeps agentic AI running smoothly.
The bank says this is not a substitution for GPU demand. Instead, it represents an expansion of the overall data center market. New CPU-only server racks are expected to handle workloads that GPU racks could not serve cost-effectively before.
BofA maintains a Buy rating on both stocks, with a $500 price target on AMD.
AMD is seen holding around 28% of server CPU value share by 2030, with gains expected in both cloud and enterprise segments. Nvidia is favored for its ability to combine CPUs, GPUs, networking, and memory into full AI systems.
Nvidia’s upcoming Vera CPU, set to launch with its Vera Rubin platform in the second half of 2026, is expected to work alongside GPUs at close to a one-to-one ratio in future AI server pods.
ARM-based custom chips, including AWS Graviton, Google Axion, and Microsoft Cobalt, are forecast to be the fastest-growing segment, rising from roughly 15% of server CPU value share today to around 37% by 2030. Intel is expected to lose share in both cloud and enterprise.
Nvidia’s most recent earnings backed up the CPU trend. The company reported Q1 Fiscal 2027 adjusted earnings per share of $1.87, ahead of Wall Street’s estimate of $1.75. Revenue came in at $81.6 billion, up 85% year-over-year.
Despite the strong growth outlook, server CPUs are still projected to represent only 5 to 6% of total data center spending by 2030. AI accelerators are expected to remain the dominant component, in a broader AI data center market that BofA sees reaching $1.7 trillion.
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