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AMD Transforms Into Fierce Competition for Intel in Data Centers
AMD is heavily pressuring Intel in the server CPU market, thanks to the guidance of AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. As Wccftech notes, the company has gone from having no server CPU market share in 2017 to approaching 40% this year. AMD could be on track to hit 50% market share in fewer than 10 years from entering the space. That's a shocking success on AMD's part, and although there are many reasons for its success, a few stand out.
The most obvious source of AMD's success in challenging Intel for data center CPU share is Su. As the company's chair and CEO, Su oversaw multiple successes for AMD, including the rise of its Epyc CPUs, which challenged Intel's Xeon processors. Writing for ExtremeTech in 2019, Joel Hruska noted that Epyc processors were better-positioned to gain market share than AMD's previous major challenge to Intel in this segment.
Credit: AMD
'In 2005, AMD's dual cores matched Intel on core count, outperformed Intel clock-for-clock and core-for-core, and were quite expensive,' Hruska wrote. In 2019, AMD went for the trifecta, with higher performance, more cores, and lower per-core pricing. It's the most serious assault on Intel's high-end Xeon market that the company has ever launched.'
As AMD continued to produce successful Epyc processors and related products (such as its Instinct GPUs), its market share surged. According to DigiTimes Asia, AMD snagged 25% of the server processor segment by 2023. Now, with its segment market share at 39.4%, the chance to break even with Intel—and possibly overtake it—is in sight.
Obviously, AMD's success in the server CPU segment is resulting in massive revenue. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, AMD's data center segment brought in $3.7 billion, which marked a 57% year-over-year increase. In its quarterly report, AMD attributed that growth to its Epyc and Instinct sales.
Credit: Intel
Intel has struggled during this time. Its former CEO, Pat Gelsinger, focused heavily on rebuilding the company's chip manufacturing capabilities, but his tenure came to an end in late 2024.
Still, Intel is addressing AMD's gains. Early this year, it dropped the prices on its Xeon 6 CPUs by as much as 30%. The move kept many Xeons priced above AMD's CPUs, but made them more competitive. And the arrival of Intel's new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, could mark a turning point for the chipmaker. But with AMD's sustained momentum in the CPU server segment, Intel will need to move quickly.
