The global server central processing unit market will grow more than 30% a year over the next four years, driven by the spread of agentic artificial intelligence, which makes its own decisions and carries out multiple tasks, according to a new forecast. Nvidia, a latecomer to the CPU business, is expected to pass established players AMD and Intel next year. As AI moves beyond simply answering questions toward autonomously handling complex work, the role of CPUs in managing tasks and processing data will grow larger, the report said.
A team of Mizuho Securities analysts led by Vijay Rakesh said in a recent report that the total addressable market for global server CPUs will reach about $209 billion by 2030, according to investment platform Seeking Alpha on the 12th. That implies average annual growth of 32% over the next four years.
Demand for agentic AI will drive that expansion, the analysts said. They put the agentic AI CPU market at about $80 billion in 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 123% over the next four years. CPUs for agentic AI handle the computation and task management required when AI runs multiple programs and links to outside systems to carry out actual work. The market for head-node CPUs, which handle data processing and task allocation in AI servers built around graphics processing units, will grow 61% a year to $68 billion by 2030, Mizuho estimated. By contrast, the market for conventional CPUs used in general-purpose servers will expand just 2% a year, staying at about $60 billion over the same period.
Agentic AI will also emerge as a major source of demand in the memory chip market, the report said. Mizuho estimated that agentic AI-related demand will account for 22% to 30% of the total market for CPUs, DRAM and NAND flash memory, respectively, by 2030. The share of agentic AI CPUs within total server CPU demand will widen from about 4% now to about 30% in 2030.
Revenue at the companies involved is also set to climb sharply. Mizuho projected AMD's server CPU revenue will rise to about $44 billion in 2028 from about $12 billion in 2025, while Intel's will increase to $41 billion from $17 billion over the same period.
Nvidia will post the steepest growth, the brokerage said. Its server CPU revenue will expand more than eightfold, to $60 billion in 2028 from about $7 billion in 2025. Led by Vera, its in-house server CPU, Nvidia will gain share in the merchant CPU market and overtake its rivals in 2027, Mizuho said.
On the back of that outlook, Mizuho raised its price targets for several of the companies. It lifted AMD to $705 from $580 and Intel to $114 from $92. Dell Technologies went to $650 from $600, and SanDisk to $2,050 from $1,875. For Super Micro Computer, the brokerage raised its target to $43 from $35 but kept a neutral rating. It left its targets for Nvidia and Micron unchanged at $325 and $1,400, respectively.
