NVIDIA's 'Vera' CPUs could outperform and outsell competing x86 offerings from Intel and AMD

NVIDIA introduced its Vera CPU back in March at GTC 2026, billing it as the world's first processor purpose-built for agentic AI workloads. The chip is an ARM-based, 88-core design that can be sold standalone or paired with the Rubin GPU inside NVIDIA's NVL72 systems, and the company has already hand-delivered its first Vera units to partners including Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, and Oracle.

Now, the revenue projections attached to Vera are turning heads in a big way. During NVIDIA's recent earnings call, CFO Colette Kress stated that the company expects its Grace and Vera CPU lineup to bring in around $20 billion in revenue this fiscal year alone. CEO Jensen Huang framed the broader opportunity as a brand-new $200 billion total addressable market (TAM), one that NVIDIA says it has never previously addressed.

To put that $20 billion figure in perspective, Intel's Data Center and AI division pulled in $16.8 billion across all of last year, while AMD's data center segment brought in $16.63 billion in 2025. However, one can argue that the AI boom will lead to higher revenue for these companies as we move through 2026 and towards 2027.

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For comparison, in Q1 2026, Intel's data center segment pulled in $5.1 billion, while AMD generated $5.8 billion. These figures comprise both Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC CPUs, along with accompanying products such as AMD's Instinct GPUs. If NVIDIA hits its target, it would effectively outsell both rivals in the CPU space within a single fiscal year, which is a remarkable statement for a company that has only just entered the market.

Beyond sales, analysts at GF Securities are expecting NVIDIA to make a strong performance case for Vera at Computex 2026 on June 1. Their analysis suggests NVIDIA will claim Vera delivers around 1.5 times faster inference performance over competing x86 chips from Intel and AMD, alongside double the overall throughput and four times the rack density. Intel is expected to respond at the same show by spotlighting its entry-level Wildcat Lake CPUs, while AMD continues pushing its EPYC roadmap forward.

As for when Vera reaches scale, GF Securities projects shipments of roughly 1.2 million units in FY2027, ramping sharply to about 4.2 million units in FY2028. Of course, this growth will be largely driven by the shift toward CPU-heavy agentic AI infrastructure. It will be interesting to see how AMD and Intel plan to compete with NVIDIA going forward. After dominating the GPU space, NVIDIA looks poised to eat their lunch money in the enterprise CPU market as well.