AMD OpenAI Deal Explained: What It Means for AMD Stock

The companies building artificial intelligence now order computing power years before they can use it. One large order can lift a chipmaker's share price by almost a quarter in a single day, and the headlines that follow tend to squeeze the whole agreement into one big number.

That number usually mixes three different things. There is what the buyer has firmly promised to buy, and what the seller hopes to sell to other customers because of the deal. Then there is what the seller handed the buyer in its own shares. Read as one figure, it hides what investors are actually paying for.

Any supply deal becomes a stock story through four questions. Who pays for the chips, and when does that money count as revenue? What did the deal cost the seller's shareholders? And how much did the market add to the share price on the day the news broke?

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) signed one of the clearest examples with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in October 2025. It stands out because part of what AMD offered was its own stock. On BloFin, AMD's share price can be traded through the AMDUSDT Perpetual, a contract that follows the stock.

What is the AMD-OpenAI deal?

The AMD-OpenAI deal is a multi-year agreement for OpenAI to deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs, starting with 1 gigawatt of MI450 chips in the second half of 2026 (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). AMD also gave OpenAI a warrant to buy up to 160 million AMD shares at one cent each (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025).

A GPU, or graphics processing unit, is the kind of chip that trains and runs AI models. Instinct is AMD's brand of GPUs for data centers. A gigawatt is a unit of power, so the order is measured by the electricity the chips will draw once they are installed. AMD's later agreement with Meta is sized in gigawatts too (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). Power has become the common unit in AMD's AI data-center story.

The main terms, as AMD's filings and the joint announcement set them out, are these:

Only the first gigawatt is a firm order. In its report for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, AMD still said OpenAI "intends to deploy up to 6 gigawatts", which is a plan and not a purchase (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). The rest depends on OpenAI choosing to keep buying, and the warrant is built to reward it for doing so.

What AMD sells OpenAI, and who pays for it

AMD sells OpenAI its Instinct GPUs, starting with the MI450 series and complete rack-scale systems, then later generations. The invoice can go to OpenAI, to one of its affiliates, or to a third party buying on its behalf. Purchases by all three count toward the order and toward the warrant (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025).

The two companies were already working together before the deal. Their hardware and software collaboration began with AMD's MI300X and continued with the MI350X series, and the agreement carries it on to the MI450 and beyond (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). The MI450 is the chip at the center of the first gigawatt. AMD also sells it inside Helios, its rack-scale system.

A rack-scale system puts many GPUs, the processors that direct them and the networking between them into one server rack. It ships as a single unit, so a buyer installs a finished block of computing power in one delivery. AMD's version is Helios, and AMD's MI450 and Helios roadmap sets when each generation ships.

For a shareholder, the product matters less than who pays and when. An order sized by power should still turn into AMD revenue one shipment at a time. Each shipment also has to land in a data center that is built, powered and ready to plug it in. If the building or its power supply runs late, the delivery can slip into a later quarter. That is why the buyer of each rack, and the date its data center is ready, are likely to decide when the order turns into AMD revenue.

Authorized Purchasers and cloud providers

An Authorized Purchaser is a company that buys AMD GPUs indirectly for OpenAI. AMD's filing counts those purchases toward OpenAI's milestones (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025). AMD expects that to mean a cloud service provider (CSP), a company that owns data centers and rents out their computing power. On the call the day the deal was announced, Lisa Su, AMD's chief executive, said "the choice of CSP is really OpenAI's" (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call, October 6, 2025).

She made the same point in August 2026, saying OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta would use AMD's GPUs through several cloud providers, from the largest to smaller ones (source: AMD Q2 2026 earnings call). The paying company can therefore be a cloud, while the demand still comes from OpenAI and depends on OpenAI's own finances.

Say you read AMD's next quarterly report and see a large cloud provider named as a big buyer of Instinct GPUs. That purchase might count toward OpenAI's gigawatts, or it might be the cloud's own order for other customers. AMD's second-quarter 2026 results listed Microsoft and Oracle among the companies deploying Helios, next to OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic (source: AMD Q2 2026 results). That list names users of the racks, and it says nothing about who bought on OpenAI's behalf.

How much revenue the OpenAI deal could bring AMD

AMD has given three revenue figures for the OpenAI deal. Jean Hu, the finance chief, said it should bring "tens of billions of dollars in revenue" (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). Lisa Su said it adds "double-digit billions" a year once it ramps, and her "well over $100 billion" includes other customers (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call).

Hu and Su gave all three figures on October 6, 2025, and each covers a different span of time and a different set of customers:

Tens of billions and double-digit billions both mean at least $10 billion and less than $100 billion. Hu gave no time period, while Su's figure is a yearly amount after the ramp, so both can be true at once. Su's largest number is a different kind of claim. She said the deal would bring AMD more revenue from other existing and new customers, meaning buyers who might pick AMD after seeing it supply OpenAI at scale (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call).

None of the three is a contract value. The purchase agreement that would state one is not public, so each figure is AMD's own estimate from the day of the announcement. A headline that calls this a "$100 billion deal" has taken Su's widest number and dropped the other customers she counted in it.

AMD also said the deal would be highly accretive to its non-GAAP earnings per share, meaning it would add to them (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). Su said on the call that this would hold from the first revenue the deal brings (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). Non-GAAP, or adjusted, earnings leave out items such as stock-based pay. None of it can show up before that first revenue, which is where the question of timing starts.

When the OpenAI deal becomes AMD revenue

AMD counts revenue on standard chips when it ships them to the customer (source: AMD Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). AMD's announcement calls OpenAI's chips AMD Instinct MI450 Series GPUs and does not describe them as custom (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). If AMD books them as standard parts, the revenue counts as they ship.

Revenue recognition is the accounting rule for when a sale counts in a company's results. AMD's 10-K calls standard parts "non-custom products" and books them at shipment. It has a second route for custom products, which it books while it makes them, and it ties those mainly to its Client and Gaming business (source: AMD Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Revenue booked that way from custom products and development services was about 4% of AMD's revenue in the second quarter of 2026 (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). AMD has not said in a filing which of the two routes OpenAI's order takes.

AMD reports Instinct sales in its Data Center segment (source: AMD Q2 2026 results). The deal will therefore show up in that segment a quarter at a time. On the day of the announcement, Su said revenue would begin in the second half of 2026 (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). In August 2026 she said the first Helios shipments were on track to begin later in the third quarter of 2026 (source: AMD Q2 2026 earnings call). On September 8, 2026, Jean Hu said the third quarter would see only the very beginning of production shipments, with a much larger step up in the fourth quarter (source: AMD at Citi's 2026 Global TMT Conference). AMD's third quarter ended on September 26, 2026 (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). AMD's report for it will be the first to show whether shipments began.

Two figures in AMD's reports can look as though they show the deal's size before any chips ship, and neither does. One is a backlog figure called remaining performance obligations. The other is the warrant, whose value is due to reduce AMD's revenue rather than add to it.

Remaining performance obligations are revenue a company has signed contracts for but not yet delivered. Investors often read them as a backlog. At June 27, 2026, AMD reported $222 million of them, of which $144 million was expected within 12 months (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). The figure only covers contracts first expected to last more than one year, so orders due to be filled within a year are left out.

That $222 million is a small fraction of the tens of billions AMD expects from OpenAI. It is also down from $315 million on December 27, 2025, the end of AMD's fiscal 2025 (source: AMD Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). The 10-Q does not say whether any part of OpenAI's order is inside it. The deal's size cannot be read from this line, which is why the executives' own statements carry so much weight.

How the warrant reduces AMD's reported revenue

AMD plans to treat the value of OpenAI's warrant as a cost of making the sale. In its report for the quarter ended September 27, 2025, AMD said the warrant's value on the day it was granted "will be recognized as a reduction to revenue when revenue is recognized" (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q3 2025). That grant-date value is the warrant's fair value, an estimate of what it was worth at the time. Any later change in its value goes to other income or expense, outside revenue.

Say you are reading a future AMD quarter in which GPUs for the OpenAI agreement ship. Made-up figures show the arithmetic, because AMD has not published either number:

The reduction follows the revenue, because AMD books it only as it books the sales it belongs to (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q3 2025). A quarter with no revenue under the OpenAI agreement has nothing to deduct it from. AMD has not disclosed how it spreads the warrant's value across the GPUs that do ship, including those bought for OpenAI through cloud providers. That makes the first quarters of MI450 revenue the ones to read closely.

The warrant AMD gave OpenAI

AMD gave OpenAI the right to buy up to 160 million AMD shares for one cent each. Batches are released as OpenAI's purchases grow toward 6 gigawatts and AMD's stock meets performance thresholds and price targets rising to $600 (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025). The warrant calls it an incentive to make substantial purchases (source: AMD warrant to OpenAI).

A warrant is a right to buy new shares from the company at a set price until a set date. OpenAI's comes in tranches, batches of shares that vest, or become earned, together once their vesting conditions are met. Each vested tranche must then meet separate technical and commercial conditions before OpenAI can use it, and the warrant runs until October 5, 2030 (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025).

What AMD gave up is easiest to see as a paper value, the worth of the shares if every tranche were vested and exercised:

The day after the announcement, The Motley Fool's Timothy Green put it bluntly. In his view, AMD was handing over tens of billions of dollars of stock to earn tens of billions of dollars of revenue (source: The Motley Fool, October 7, 2025). AMD's $630.63 close is above the $600 target for the final tranche. Yet the price is only one condition, since each tranche also needs OpenAI's purchases to reach its milestone and AMD's stock to meet separate performance thresholds (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025). At June 27, 2026, the latest date AMD has reported on, none of those shares had vested, and the warrant had no effect on AMD's results (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026). Every share OpenAI receives would be newly issued, so exercising the warrant would also raise AMD's share count.

On the October 2025 call, Su was asked whether OpenAI would sell vested shares to pay for its data centers. She said the warrant was a way to align incentives and that what OpenAI does with the shares is up to OpenAI (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). Paying a customer partly in stock also ties AMD's results to how much one of the buyers of AMD's AI chips keeps ordering.

How AMD stock reacted to the OpenAI deal

AMD closed at $203.71 on October 6, 2025, up 23.7% from $164.67 on the previous trading day, after opening at $226.45. Volume was about six times the day before, and by the October 10 close the shares stood 30.5% above their pre-deal price (source: Yahoo Finance, AMD historical prices).

The news came out before Nasdaq opened, so the first trade on October 6 already carried it. AMD opened 37.5% above the Friday close, then gave back part of the jump and closed 10% below the open. Reuters' early headline put the gain at over 34%, a move before the open (source: Reuters via Yahoo Finance). The closing gain of 23.7% is the figure that lasted. The rise of $39.04 a share added about $64 billion to AMD's market value, worked out from the 1,628,041,540 shares AMD reported on October 30, 2025 (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q3 2025).

When a company's reported earnings and sales stay the same for a day, every ratio built on them moves exactly with the share price. AMD's trailing price-to-earnings and price-to-sales ratios both rose 23.7% on October 6, because only the price changed. At the last quarter end before the deal, September 27, 2025, AMD's forward P/E was 31.50 and its price-to-sales ratio 8.08, based on its $159.46 close on Friday, September 26 (source: Stock Analysis, AMD quarterly ratios).

A forward P/E compares the share price with the earnings per share analysts expect AMD to make next year, so it also depends on when analysts revise those estimates. At an unchanged price, the forward P/E falls only if those earnings estimates rise. A jump like October 6 is the market paying in advance for revenue that has not shipped yet, and how a P/E moves from there depends on whether the earnings arrive.

AMD closed at $630.63 on September 25, 2026 (source: Yahoo Finance, AMD historical prices). That is about 3.1 times its October 6, 2025 close, worked out from the same price history. The AMDUSDT Perpetual follows that price, and its live price is on the AMDUSDT Perpetual page.

What to watch in AMD's reports as the OpenAI deal ships

Four items in AMD's quarterly reports will show whether the OpenAI deal is turning into business. They are data-center revenue as MI450 systems ship, a note that a warrant tranche has vested, the warrant's value coming off revenue, and any change to OpenAI's plan to deploy up to 6 gigawatts.

The same reports can also show the deal paying less than the headlines suggested, starting with any cut to OpenAI's plan for the five gigawatts beyond its firm order. Shares that have not vested are canceled automatically when the warrant expires. So are vested shares whose exercise conditions are still unmet, and both are canceled earlier if AMD ends the purchase agreement for cause (source: AMD warrant to OpenAI). Deliveries also depend on data centers being ready. Su described the first gigawatt as a question of lining up the power (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). In August 2026 she said AMD was matching its ramp to when the larger data centers are ready (source: AMD Q2 2026 earnings call).

AMD signed a similar agreement with Meta Platforms in February 2026, and the AMD-Meta deal also gives Meta a warrant for up to 160 million shares at $0.01, exercisable until February 23, 2031 (source: AMD Form 10-Q, Q2 2026).

Trading the OpenAI story on the AMD perpetual

The AMDUSDT Perpetual is a BloFin contract that tracks AMD's share price and settles in USDT, and it offers leverage of up to 20x (source: BloFin, AMDUSDT contract information). A view on how the OpenAI deal ships can be taken long or short on it without owning AMD shares.

The contract began trading on May 6, 2026, seven months after the deal, so it did not exist on the day of the announcement. What it adds is a price that keeps moving outside Nasdaq's regular session. BloFin's regular weekday hours for stock futures run from 13:30 to 20:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) while US daylight time is in force (source: BloFin, Updates to BloFin Stock Futures Trading). Those hours are Nasdaq's regular session, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time (source: Nasdaq, stock market hours). Outside that session, and on weekends and exchange holidays, BloFin may accept only reduce-only orders in stock futures (source: BloFin, Updates to BloFin Stock Futures Trading). Those are orders that make an existing position smaller or close it. After AMD's $630.63 close on Friday, September 25, 2026, the AMDUSDT mark price kept moving through the weekend. It reached 641.56 on Sunday and was back near 615 before Nasdaq opened on Monday (source: BloFin, AMDUSDT mark price history). News about OpenAI's first gigawatt that breaks in the evening reaches the perpetual's price overnight, even when new positions have to wait until regular weekday trading hours resume.

Leverage and a multi-year deal pull in opposite directions. The OpenAI order plays out over years, while one sharp move in a single session can take a leveraged position down to its maintenance margin, the least margin that keeps it open. BloFin may then reduce the position in part or liquidate it (source: BloFin, forced liquidation rules). The AMDUSDT Perpetual also charges or pays funding, a periodic payment between long and short holders, every eight hours for as long as the position stays open (source: BloFin, AMDUSDT contract information). Over that span, a smaller position at lower leverage sits further from its liquidation price. That extra room is what lets a leveraged AMD trade ride out a sharp session.

Before you open a position around an OpenAI headline, check the date of the next AMD report. The deal's milestones surface there first, in the revenue, warrant and deployment notes, and the perpetual prices them as soon as they are public.

Looking to trade the AMDUSDT Perpetual as the OpenAI deal ships? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and go to the AMDUSDT Perpetual trading page.

Frequently asked questions

Is the AMD-OpenAI deal worth $100 billion?

Reuters reported on October 6, 2025 that AMD executives expected more than $100 billion of new revenue over four years from OpenAI and other customers combined (source: Reuters via Yahoo Finance). On the investor call that day, Lisa Su said the partnership had the potential to generate well over $100 billion in revenue over the next few years, counting other existing and new customers in it (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). No contract value is public, and AMD's estimate for OpenAI alone is tens of billions of dollars.

Is the full AMD-OpenAI contract public?

Only part of it is. With its October 2025 filing, AMD published the warrant, a registration rights agreement and the press release, but not the product purchase agreement itself (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025). In the public copy of the warrant, six schedules are blacked out, including the vesting schedule and the exercise conditions. The warrant was signed for OpenAI by its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar (source: AMD warrant to OpenAI).

Is OpenAI buying AMD stock?

OpenAI holds a warrant, a right to buy up to 160 million new AMD shares from the company at $0.01 each once tranches vest and meet their conditions. It can pay in cash or choose a cashless exercise, in which it receives fewer shares instead of paying cash. It may transfer the warrant only to its affiliates, with limited exceptions. The shares it receives can be traded, subject to securities laws and set limits (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025).

Does the OpenAI deal change AMD's gross margin?

Gross margin is the percentage of revenue AMD keeps after paying to make the chips it sold. Asked about it on the October 2025 call, Jean Hu said the gross margin for the OpenAI business was "very consistent with what we discussed in the past" (source: AMD and OpenAI investor call). On a reported basis, the warrant's value coming off revenue would trim the margin on those sales. The cost of the chips stays the same while the revenue booked for them falls.

When was the AMD-OpenAI deal announced?

AMD and OpenAI announced the deal on Monday, October 6, 2025. AMD published its release at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time, before Nasdaq opened, and it held a call for investors at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time that morning (source: AMD and OpenAI announcement). AMD had signed the agreement and issued the warrant the day before, Sunday, October 5 (source: AMD Form 8-K, October 2025). The Form 8-K setting out the warrant's terms was signed and filed on October 6 as well.

Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include AMD's Form 8-K of October 6, 2025 and the warrant filed with it, the joint AMD and OpenAI announcement of October 6, 2025, the transcript of AMD's investor call that day, AMD's Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended September 27, 2025 and June 27, 2026, its Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, its second-quarter 2026 results release and call, and the transcript of its September 8, 2026 Citi conference appearance. Other sources are The Motley Fool, Reuters via Yahoo Finance, price history from Yahoo Finance, ratios from Stock Analysis, Nasdaq's market hours, and BloFin's AMDUSDT contract information, mark price history, stock futures notice and forced liquidation rules, current as of September 28, 2026.

Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold AMD in any form. Revenue from the OpenAI deal depends on deliveries that can slip, and beyond the first gigawatt the order is a plan rather than a commitment. AMD's revenue figures for the deal are its own estimates, and the warrant's paper value moves with AMD's share price. News about the deal can break outside regular weekday trading hours, when BloFin may accept only orders that cut or close an AMDUSDT position, and a leveraged position that falls to its maintenance margin may be reduced or liquidated. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.