The Better Nvidia Killer: Broadcom or AMD?

Alex Sirois

Fri, September 11, 2026 at 7:40 PM GMT+3 4 min read

Quick Read

Broadcom's AI revenue surged 221% to $16.7B while AMD's Data Center hit $6.72B, up 107%, as both mount credible challenges to Nvidia's AI compute dominance.
Hock Tan argues co-designed custom silicon runs at less than half a GPU's cost, directly undercutting Nvidia's general-purpose model on price and power efficiency.
Broadcom's 46% free cash flow margin and locked hyperscale contracts make it the stronger Nvidia disruptor over AMD's higher-upside open-ecosystem bet.
Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and Broadcom didn't make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat AVGO. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) just delivered blockbuster quarters that put both squarely in the NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) conversation. Broadcom's Q3 FY2026 report on September 2 showed AI silicon exploding. AMD's Q2 FY2026 earnings report on August 4 revealed a data center business finally scaling. Two playbooks. One target: Nvidia's grip on AI compute.

24/7 Wall St.

Custom Silicon Carries Broadcom. Instinct Carries AMD.

Broadcom's AI semiconductor revenue hit $16.7 billion, up 221% year over year and 54% sequentially. CEO Hock Tan said "when you co-develop a chip that is optimized for your particular LLM workloads, you will outperform any GPU". That confidence sits behind a guide for Q4 AI revenue of roughly $21.7 billion, up 236%, with fiscal 2027 AI revenue projected at approximately $115 billion. Six hyperscale customers, including Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic, anchor the story.

AMD's Data Center segment reached $6.72 billion, up 107% YoY, powered by MI350 shipments and record EPYC sales. Lisa Su called it an "excellent quarter, with record revenue and profitability". The new Helios rack platform, pairing MI450 GPUs with EPYC Venice CPUs and Pensando networking, is "tracking ahead of our initial forecasts". Anthropic committed to up to 2 GW of MI450 Series. Microsoft is expanding Azure deployments.

Free Report, Just Released

Why Didn't AVGO Make The Top 10 List?

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

And AVGO didn't make the cut!

The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.

Enter Your Email and See the Ten →

Business Driver

Broadcom

AMD

AI Growth Engine

Custom XPUs, Ethernet networking

Instinct GPUs, Helios rack systems

Customer Base

Six frontier-model hyperscalers

Broader mix: hyperscalers, labs, enterprise

Software Layer

VMware Private AI Cloud

ROCm / Rackham.ai

Concentrated Bet vs. Open Ecosystem

Broadcom is betting that a small handful of frontier labs will consume most AI compute, and that co-designed silicon beats general-purpose GPUs on cost and power. Tan claims custom accelerators can run at "less than half the cost" of a GPU. AMD is playing the opposite side: an open, merchant model where Rackham now runs more than 3 million models out of the box, and Helios delivers "up to 30% more tokens per dollar than the competition".

Valuation reflects the divergence. Broadcom trades at a forward P/E of 20. AMD sits at a forward P/E of 32, with a trailing multiple near 128. AMD is priced for a much steeper ramp.

Supply, Not Demand, Decides 2027

Both CEOs flagged the same choke points: HBM, substrates, packaging, and data center power. Broadcom said demand "exceeds this outlook". AMD said it has supply to "more than meet the guidance". I will be watching MI450 yields as Helios ramps, and whether Broadcom's OpenAI Jalapeno program actually hits its 1.3 gigawatt target in 2027.

Why I Lean Broadcom for the Nvidia Fight

For me, Broadcom is the more credible Nvidia disruptor today. The customer commitments are locked, the networking moat is real, and the 46% free cash flow margin gives it firepower few semis can match. AMD is the higher-upside pick if you believe merchant GPUs plus an open software stack can pry share from CUDA. If AMD's 2027 consensus EPS of $15.45 proves conservative, the stock likely rewards patience. I would consider both, and we reverse-engineered what the earliest Nvidia-style winners had in common in a free playbook here. But if I could only own one for the "Nvidia killer" thesis, I would take the picks-and-shovels business with signed hyperscale contracts.

Got $1,000? Before You Buy AVGO, Read This

If you have cash sitting in your account right now, give this two minutes. After more than two decades of helping investors beat the market, our top analysts at 24/7 Wall St. put together a definitive report on the Top 10 Stocks To Buy Today. And AVGO wasn't one of them.

They combed the entire market. It's not 10 ideas, not 10 stocks everyone is talking about, it's what their research points to as the 10 best stocks to buy right now, and it's free. Read more here and see which stocks made the list -->>

Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.