AMD jumps 9% in premarket trading as global chip stocks rally after earnings and geopolitics lift sector

Shares of global semiconductor firms rallied on Wednesday as they were boosted by some positive earnings in the sector and a report of potentially less severe U.S. export restrictions on China.

AMD was among the morning's big winners with shares up more than 9% in U.S. premarket trading after the company reported a top and bottom line beat in its second-quarter financial report. AMD saw strong growth in its data center business, driven by sales of its graphics processing units (GPUs) which are used to train artificial intelligence models.

The strong set of numbers gave other U.S. chipmakers a boost including rival Nvidia, which was around 5% higher in premarket trading, and Qualcomm.

Also on the earnings front, Samsung, the world's largest memory chip company, which reported a 1,458.2% year-on-year rise in second-quarter operating profit on Wednesday. Some of its chips are also key for AI applications. Samsung shares closed 3.58% higher in South Korea. Shares of rival SK Hynix also closed 3% higher.

But it was not just earnings lifting semiconductor stocks. Reuters reported on Wednesday that the U.S. is considering expanding a rule that could restrict the exports of semiconductor-related equipment from foreign companies to China, but that allies including Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea could be excluded.

This contradicted a report from Bloomberg earlier this month which suggested those countries may be swept up in the restrictions.

The Reuters report added to the rally for South Korean firms Samsung and SK Hynix.

Meanwhile, Dutch semiconductor equipment firm ASML was as much as 10% higher on Wednesday and Japanese chip gear maker Tokyo Electron closed up 7.41%.