The Zhitong Finance App learned that Mizuho said that with the rapid increase in AI application scenarios, server CPU demand is expected to increase dramatically, further driving demand for DRAM, NAND, and server equipment. Based on the latest forecast of infrastructure demand for AI smart devices, Mizuho raised the target prices for AMD (AMD.US), Intel (INTC.US), Dell (DELL.US), SanDisk (SNDK.US), and ultra-microcomputer (SMCI.US), while reaffirming the bullish views of Nvidia (NVDA.US) and Micron Technology (MU.US).
Mizuho analysts, led by Vijay Rakesh, predict that by 2030, the CPU market for AI agents will reach about 80 billion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of 123% over the next four years; the head-node CPU market for coordinating computing tasks is expected to reach 68 billion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of about 61%; the traditional CPU market is expected to reach 60 billion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of only about 2%.
Overall, Mizuho expects the global server CPU potential market size (TAM) to increase to about 209 billion US dollars by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 32% over the next four years. This forecast is even lower than AMD's long-term market size target of over 220 billion US dollars.
AI agents will be the most important growth engine among them. Mizuho predicts that CPU demand related to AI agents will rapidly rise from about 4% now to about 30% in 2030 as a proportion of total server CPU demand. At the same time, in the CPU, DRAM, and NAND markets, AI agents may eventually contribute 22% to 30% of shipment demand.
Mizuho pointed out that Muse, a personal AI agent recently launched by Meta (META.US), was welcomed by the market, and the release of DOTS by OpenAI all indicate that AI agents are being more deeply integrated into daily work processes. As AI agents need to continuously execute tasks, call models, and coordinate different computing resources, their popularity is expected to significantly increase server-side CPU and storage requirements.
In the short term, Mizuho believes that the four leading CPUs are expected to be important beneficiaries of AI intelligent workloads, including Arm (ARM.US) AGI CPUs, AMD's Venice, Nvidia's Vera, and Intel's Diamond Rapids.
In terms of the server CPU competition landscape, Mizuho expects AMD and Intel-related revenue to grow steadily. AMD server CPU revenue is expected to increase from about 12 billion US dollars in 2025 to about 44 billion US dollars in 2028, while Intel is expected to increase from about 17 billion US dollars to 41 billion US dollars.
In contrast, Nvidia is likely to show a steeper growth curve. Mizuho expects its server CPU revenue to surge from around $7 billion in 2025 to around $60 billion in 2028, and is expected to surpass its rivals in 2027. As Vera expands, Nvidia is expected to expand its market share with Vera standalone racks and CPU products supporting GPU computing nodes. Mizuho maintains Nvidia's “outperforming the market” rating and a target price of $325.
Server vendors are also expected to share the infrastructure investment dividends brought by AI agents. Mizuho anticipates that Dell's pure CPU server revenue may increase from about 19 billion US dollars in 2025 to about 40 billion US dollars in 2028; revenue related to ultra-microcomputers may increase from 7 billion US dollars to 17 billion US dollars, mainly driven by AI intelligent orchestration requirements and traditional enterprise server deployment.
Based on the above demand outlook, Mizuho raised the AMD target price from $580 to $705, Dell's target price from $600 to $650, Intel's target price from $92 to $114, SanDisk's target price from $1,875 to $2,050, and raised the target price for ultra-microcomputers from $35 to $43. In addition to assigning a “neutral” rating to ultra-microcomputers, Mizuho maintained a “outperforming the market” rating for the rest of the companies mentioned above.
Memory chips are also viewed by Mizuho as an important beneficiary direction of expanding demand for AI smart devices. As AI agents drive demand for DRAM and NAND, the bank reaffirmed Micron's “outperform the market” rating and target price of $1,400.