Citi's Atif Malik: CPU market to hit $300 billion by 2030

Meta's Muse debut and OpenAI's Dots have pushed sophisticated digital assistants to the front of their AI sales pitch, and that shift is now reshaping how Wall Street views the chip market. Citi's Atif Malik tied his AMD price target upgrade directly to that debut, writing that the total CPU market should expand from $29 billion in 2025 to $300 billion in 2030. With Meta already one of AMD's biggest customers, Malik expects AMD to catch the money as tech companies pour resources into running AI agents.

Bank of America analysts led by Vivek Arya added their own support last week, pointing to increased AI agent adoption by consumers and businesses, heightened competition across AI labs, and a limited supply of chips. They also argued the AI safety debate will probably work as a positive catalyst, especially for agents, as resources shift from training models to putting them to work.

While GPUs continue to dominate data center spending, the reported dynamics suggest CPUs are becoming a bigger part of the AI equation, lifting Intel and AMD as potential beneficiaries. The outcome likely hinges on whether agent adoption keeps climbing and whether safety guardrails indeed shift more demand to inference, as the analysts expect. Investors watching the CPU "renaissance" will be tracking whether the projected market expansion materializes as described.