New York, February 23, 2026, 10:54 EST — Regular session
- AMD slipped roughly 1.4% in late morning, trading close to $197.
- Tech shares dropped, pressured by renewed tariff uncertainty that hit risk appetite.
- Nvidia’s earnings later this week are on traders’ radar, seen as a key signal for AI chip demand.
Advanced Micro Devices shares dropped roughly 1.4% to $197.29 during late-morning Nasdaq action on Monday, part of a wider tech sector retreat. The stock moved between $194.42 and $199.34 so far, with trading volume hitting around 8.3 million shares.
This is a big deal at the moment—semiconductors are woven into sprawling, international supply chains, so blanket tariffs can disrupt not just electronics demand, but also who controls pricing. Whenever trade policy gets unpredictable, chip shares are usually the first to slide.
Investors want to see if hefty investments in AI servers are actually pulling through in profits—not just pushing up shipment numbers. That uncertainty keeps the group jumpy on the tape, even when there’s no fresh AMD news to chew on.
U.S. equities slipped early, weighed down by declines in major tech stocks, after President Donald Trump unveiled a fresh 15% tariff in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that blocked his earlier, broader trade measures. By 09:55 a.m. ET, the Dow lost 0.68%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.36%, and the Nasdaq slipped 0.48%. “You simply can’t bet against Trump. He wants tariffs, and he’s going to find a way to implement them,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital. Reuters
AMD shares have drawn attention after a top executive sketched out a new India strategy centered on “Helios”—a rack-scale system packing an entire suite of AI hardware into a single unit. Thomas Zacharia, senior vice president for strategic technology partnerships and public policy, called Helios a 72-GPU integrated system delivering 2.9 exaflops of computing muscle per rack. “This is not just about GPUs. It’s about the entire stack, hardware and software integrated at the rack level,” Zacharia said. The Economic Times
AMD and Tata Consultancy Services announced plans on Feb. 16 to jointly develop an AI infrastructure design for India, leveraging the Helios platform and targeting up to 200 megawatts of capacity. “With ‘Helios,’ we are delivering an open, rack-scale AI platform designed for performance, efficiency, and long-term flexibility,” said chief executive Lisa Su. AMD
That approach marks a bigger trend in chips—companies pushing not just silicon, but packaged systems and software, aiming for a larger slice of the data-center wallet. More complicated, though: it hinges on customers investing in power, networking, and entire rollouts—not merely replacing a few components.
AMD is working to narrow Nvidia’s lead in AI accelerators, all while fending off Intel in the server chip arena. The stock’s been quick to react to shifts in corporate IT spending sentiment and will likely move again with the next earnings release and any clues on AI investment momentum.
Tariffs remain unpredictable. For chipmakers, the risks are clear: costs could jump, demand might weaken, and forecasts get harder to pin down. If AI spending shows signs of cooling or buyers pivot toward developing their own chips, valuations could take a hit fast.
Wednesday brings Nvidia’s conference call on its latest quarterly numbers, a key moment for traders eyeing AI data-center demand. The outcome could ripple through AMD and the broader sector, shaping sentiment ahead.
