Advanced Micro Devices reported the largest quarter in its history on Tuesday, as demand for its EPYC server processors and Instinct AI accelerators nearly doubled its data center business and pushed total revenue to a record level.
The company said revenue for the third quarter, which ended on September 26, 2026, rose 45 percent from a year earlier to 13.4 billion dollars. That result came in above the high end of the guidance AMD had given in August. The company reported GAAP net income of 2.4 billion dollars, or 1.46 dollars per diluted share, with a gross margin of 54 percent. On a non-GAAP basis, earnings were 2.09 dollars per share, up 74 percent from a year earlier.
The Data Center segment was the clear driver of the quarter. Segment revenue reached a record 8.5 billion dollars, up 97 percent from 4.3 billion dollars a year earlier and up 27 percent from the second quarter. Data center sales now account for about 64 percent of AMD's total revenue, up from 47 percent a year ago. Segment operating income rose to 2.88 billion dollars, compared with 1.07 billion dollars in the same quarter last year.
AMD attributed the growth to strong demand for its EPYC processors and to the launch of its Instinct MI450 Series graphics processors. The company said it began volume shipments of its MI455X accelerators during the quarter and also began revenue shipments of its sixth-generation EPYC processors, known as Venice. The first original equipment manufacturer systems using those processors are on track for availability this quarter, according to the company.
The results also mark the start of AMD's move from selling individual chips to selling complete rack-scale systems. Its Helios racks pair Instinct MI450 Series processors with sixth-generation EPYC central processors in a single liquid-cooled system designed for large AI workloads. AMD said Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are already running models and workloads on their first Helios systems. The company also said Vultr will deploy the first Helios systems sold by HPE.
"We delivered a record quarter with revenue exceeding the high end of our guidance as Data Center segment sales nearly doubled year-over-year," AMD Chair and Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su said in the earnings release. She said demand for Instinct and EPYC products continued to strengthen, and that the company expects growth to accelerate further in the fourth quarter as it scales Helios and Venice production.
Outside the data center, the picture was more mixed. Client and Gaming revenue fell 8 percent to 3.7 billion dollars. Within that segment, client revenue rose 7 percent to 2.9 billion dollars on sales of Ryzen mobile processors, while gaming revenue fell 40 percent to 773 million dollars, which AMD attributed to lower semi-custom and graphics revenue.
For the fourth quarter, AMD expects revenue of approximately 17 billion dollars, plus or minus 3 percent. That outlook would represent growth of about 66 percent from a year earlier and about 27 percent from the third quarter. The forecast makes the Helios ramp central to the company's near-term story, as cloud providers and AI developers decide how quickly to deploy AMD systems alongside competing platforms.
For enterprise buyers, the quarter offers a practical signal. AMD is no longer presenting its AI platform only as a future alternative. With Helios systems now running at several of the largest AI customers, and with both new accelerators and new server processors shipping in volume, the company is competing for production AI infrastructure spending as that spending continues to expand.