Morgan Stanley sees agentic AI widening chip spending beyond graphics processors to CPUs

Reuters | April 20, 2026 | 02:52 PM IST | Breaking News, Technology | Follow on Google News

Morgan Stanley sees agentic AI widening chip spending beyond graphics processors to CPUs

April 20 (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley said increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence could boost demand for central processing units (CPUs), reshape data ​center buildout and widen investment beyond the ‌graphic chips that have dominated the AI boom so far.

“As AI transitions from generation to autonomous action, the computing bottleneck ​is shifting towards CPU and memory, driving a ​step-change in general-purpose compute intensity,” Morgan Stanley ⁠said in a note on Sunday, adding that demand ​for graphic processing units (GPUs) remains strong.

Morgan Stanley estimates agentic ​AI could add $32.5–60 billion to a data-centre CPU market already exceeding $100 billion by 2030.

Agentic AI refers to systems that can ​plan tasks and take actions on their own, ​rather than simply responding to prompts.

Morgan Stanley said the next wave ‌of ⁠agentic AI will be driven more by coordination than just raw computing power.

CPUs are increasingly acting as the control layer for AI systems that manage multistep tasks.

Memory ​demand is set ​to rise ⁠sharply, widening AI spending beyond GPUs to chipmakers, memory suppliers and manufacturing.

Companies in ​supply-constrained parts of the ecosystem could gain ​more ⁠pricing power, the brokerage added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by VoM News staff and is published from the syndicated feed)

Reuters