Agentic AI Boom to Drive Massive Growth in CPU Market, UBS Says

The rapid rise of agentic AI is reshaping the future of data center infrastructure, creating major growth opportunities for CPU manufacturers such as Arm Holdings, AMD, and Intel. According to UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri, the increasing complexity of AI workloads is shifting demand beyond GPUs and fueling a dramatic expansion in the server CPU market.

UBS estimates the global server CPU Total Addressable Market (TAM) could surge from around $30 billion in 2025 to nearly $170 billion by 2030. The forecast is driven by the growing adoption of agentic AI systems, which require significantly more CPU resources than traditional AI models. Industry experts cited by UBS suggest that agentic AI deployments may need three to five times more CPU cores per user compared to standard computing environments.

Arm Holdings is expected to capture a substantial share of this expanding market due to its energy-efficient architecture. UBS projects ARM’s market share could rise from approximately 15% in 2025 to as much as 45% by 2030. Hyperscalers are increasingly favoring Arm-based processors because they deliver better power efficiency and support high-density scaling for AI “head nodes.” As a result, UBS raised its price target for ARM stock from $175 to $245.

Advanced Micro Devices is also positioned to benefit from the AI-driven demand surge. AMD’s strength in high-core-count processors and multithreading capabilities makes its chips ideal for handling parallel AI subagents. Meanwhile, Intel continues working to improve performance with its upcoming Coral Rapids platform, while also gaining potential upside from a renewed AI-powered PC upgrade cycle.

UBS notes that agentic AI systems require far more CPUs connected to accelerators than traditional AI training workloads. While current AI systems typically use 8 to 12 CPU cores per GPU, future agentic AI environments may require 80 to 120 cores per GPU. This shift is expected to increase CPU average selling prices significantly, especially for premium AI processors such as NVIDIA Grace and AWS Graviton 5.

By 2030, UBS forecasts CPU revenues could reach $41 billion for AMD, $39 billion for Intel, and $26 billion for Arm, highlighting the enormous long-term potential of the AI infrastructure market.