Nvidia's blowout second-quarter results included a forecast that its standalone Vera CPU line will more than double its revenue in fiscal 2028, after already targeting $20 billion in fiscal 2027. The push directly challenges AMD and Intel in the growing market for chips that run autonomous AI agents.
Nvidia beat Wall Street's second-quarter estimates and raised its third-quarter guidance above Street expectations, sending shares down 4.58% even as the results topped forecasts. But the sharper signal for competitors came from CFO Colette Kress, who said Nvidia now expects 70% annual revenue growth in fiscal 2028, well above the 44% Wall Street had modeled.
Nvidia's CPU push targets AMD and Intel
The growth of agentic AI, where autonomous agents complete tasks with little human input, has fueled demand for central processing units (CPUs) rather than just the graphics processing units (GPUs) that train large language models. That shift lifted AMD and Intel, whose CPUs are seen as better suited to orchestrating agentic workflows.
Nvidia moved to close that gap last quarter, introducing its standalone Vera CPU built specifically for running AI agents. The company says the chip can complete agentic tasks 1.8 times faster than industry standards and deliver fivefold the bandwidth per watt of any other data center CPU.
Kress had already guided to $20 billion in CPU sales for fiscal 2027, which ends in late January. On the latest call, she said that figure is expected to more than double in fiscal 2028. By comparison, Intel reported $6.3 billion in data center and AI revenue last quarter. AMD reported roughly $6.7 billion in data center revenue over the same period; neither breaks out CPU sales separately.
A market that may keep growing for everyone
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued the broader agentic AI market still has room to expand. According to Nvidia's earnings call: "Most AI are now agentic", Huang said, adding that companies will eventually run far more AI agents than employees.
That expansion could still leave space for AMD and Intel. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya raised his total addressable market estimate for server CPUs earlier this month, from a prior forecast of $170 billion by 2030 to $210 billion, citing the rise of AI agents.
For now, Nvidia's guidance shows it intends to compete directly in a category AMD and Intel had counted on as their own edge.
Source: The Motley Fool
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