Beyond Nvidia: Why the Next Phase of AI Could Crown a New Market Leader
2026-07-22 18:25
•Geoffrey Seiler •The Motley Fool
••••• ••• Axe Capital view
AMD Could Steal Nvidia’s AI Thunder—Watch the Rand
As AI shifts toward inference and agentic workloads, AMD’s chip and CPU edge may outpace Nvidia, with implications for the rand and SA tech exposure.
Everyone praises Nvidia for AI’s big surge, but the next phase—running smart AI agents and inference—is set to favour AMD. They’re not just another chip maker; their chiplet approach allows bigger memory and flexibility, crucial as AI gets more complex and moves beyond giant training models to actually using them efficiently. Also, AMD’s strength in high-performance CPUs puts them ahead in data centres, where CPUs will matter more than GPUs. For South Africa, this story links indirectly—tech heavyweights like Naspers and Prosus may benefit from a stronger AI ecosystem, but the USD/ZAR is a clearer play here. If AMD’s momentum sways foreign investors to buy more US tech stocks, the rand could weaken due to dollar strength, so a rising USD/ZAR can reflect those flows. That said, Nvidia still dominates the training space, and any surprise breakthroughs or better GPU adoption could keep Nvidia in the spotlight longer. this is just my opinion and not financial advice
I would trim Nvidia exposure and add AMD selectively, watching USD/ZAR for rub-off signals. Consider holding steady on local tech names, but keep cash ready for rand moves triggered by global tech stock shifts.
- AMD
- NVDA
- USD/ZAR
- Nvidia maintaining dominance in AI training
- Volatility in USD/ZAR driven by global tech flows
6/10
As AI infrastructure shifts from training large language models to inference and agentic AI workloads, AMD is positioned to outperform Nvidia. AMD's chiplet design with greater memory capacity, MEXT acquisition for memory optimization, and leadership in high-performance data center CPUs position it well for the growing demand in inference and agentic AI applications where CPU-to-GPU ratios will increase significantly.
This article was originally published by The Motley Fool and has been adapted here for Axe Capital Trading News.
Publisher: The Motley Fool
Author: Geoffrey Seiler
Categories: Equities, M&A, Technology, AI, Semiconductors
Tickers: AMD, NVDA, INTC
Sentiment: Mixed - AMD is highlighted as the likely winner of the next AI phase with two powerful tailwinds: superior inference capabilities through chiplet design and memory optimization (MEXT acquisition), and strong positioning in CPUs for agentic AI workloads where CPU demand will increase significantly relative to GPUs. While acknowledged as the undisputed leader in AI training and unlikely to be unseated, Nvidia is expected to face relative underperformance as the market shifts toward inference and agentic AI workloads where AMD has structural advantages.
Keywords: AI inference, agentic AI, GPU, CPU, data center, chiplet design, memory optimization, LLM training
Insights:
- AMD: Positive: AMD is highlighted as the likely winner of the next AI phase with two powerful tailwinds: superior inference capabilities through chiplet design and memory optimization (MEXT acquisition), and strong positioning in CPUs for agentic AI workloads where CPU demand will increase significantly relative to GPUs.
- NVDA: Neutral: While acknowledged as the undisputed leader in AI training and unlikely to be unseated, Nvidia is expected to face relative underperformance as the market shifts toward inference and agentic AI workloads where AMD has structural advantages.
- INTC: Negative: Intel is positioned as the primary rival to AMD in high-performance data center CPUs, and AMD is expected to gain market share from Intel as agentic AI adoption increases the demand for CPUs in data centers.