Wall Street “AI chip generation shift”: Intel/AMD +25%, Micron +37%, NVIDIA lags behind

U.S. semiconductor stocks saw a clear rotation on May 8: Intel and AMD each rose about 25%, memory maker Micron climbed 37%, and NVIDIA lagged on the day. CNBC cited a Mizuho analyst’s observation from Jordan Klein: “changing of the guard in AI”—the situation in which NVIDIA dominated the early AI infrastructure boom is changing, and profit distribution is starting to spread to CPU makers (Intel, AMD) and memory makers (Micron).

5/8 gains and losses: Intel/AMD +25% each, Micron +37%, NVIDIA lagging

Specific intraday gains:

Intel: +25% (also boosted to a record high on news about an Apple contract-manufacturing partnership)

AMD: +25%

Micron (memory): +37%

NVIDIA: relatively flat performance

Year-to-date (YTD) performance: all four companies have doubled, with Intel up more than 200%; NVIDIA is up about +15% YTD, slightly ahead of Nasdaq’s overall performance.

Rotation logic: AI inference workloads make CPUs and memory the new bottlenecks

Rotation logic highlighted by the Mizuho analyst:

AI training phase: NVIDIA GPUs are at the core, accounting for a dominant share of infrastructure investment

AI inference phase: rapidly increasing demand for CPU and memory bandwidth

Intel Xeon processors: positioned as key components for AI inference workloads, with enterprises relying on CPUs when deploying AI models in practice

Micron memory: model parameters are getting larger, making memory bandwidth and capacity new limiting factors

This rotation direction reflects AI infrastructure moving into the second phase—from the GPU competition on the training side, to full-stack optimization on the inference side. For individual investors, this round of trading indicates that the AI beneficiary group has expanded from a “single mega leader” to “multiple suppliers.”

NVIDIA’s role: from monopoly to profit sharing—doesn’t mean it’s exiting

NVIDIA’s relative underperformance YTD should not be read as a loss of AI leadership:

NVIDIA’s stock price has already surged in 2025, and the 2026 base is high, putting upward momentum relatively under pressure

AI training-side GPUs are still led by NVIDIA, and Intel and AMD likely cannot challenge their training GPU market share in the short term

This rotation is the market “sharing some AI profits with other suppliers,” not that NVIDIA has lost its lead

Key events to track next: NVIDIA’s Q1 earnings report at the end of May, disclosures of Intel Xeon AI inference server orders, Micron HBM shipment progress, and AMD’s MI300 series penetration in the enterprise market. Each company’s business guidance for the “AI second phase” will validate the fundamental support behind this stock-price rotation.

This article, “Wall Street ‘AI chip generation change’: Intel/AMD +25%, Micron +37%, NVIDIA lagging,” first appeared on Chain News.