Harvard Cuts Nvidia 34.3% and Buys $198.5M of AMD Stock

By Grace Kim

Harvard Management Company disclosed a $198.5 million stake in AMD and cut Nvidia by 34.3%. The endowment manager's third-quarter 13F, filed Friday, lists 324,400 AMD shares worth $198.5 million as of September 30. Harvard reported no AMD shares at the end of June.

The filing makes AMD a new position rather than a reshuffle of an existing one. Nvidia fell to 517,551 shares. AMD now represents 5.0% of Harvard's reported holdings, against 3.0% for Nvidia.

What does the 13F actually show?

The filing captures positions at September 30, not the trades that produced them. It covers less than 6% of a $68 billion endowment. Harvard has not explained the trades, and the document does not show when or at what prices the shares changed hands.

A reported $198.5 million allocation can read as conviction in print while remaining a small fraction of the endowment, given the filing's limited coverage and absent trade dates.

How have the positions performed?

Nvidia closed Friday at $162.85, down 28.7% from its September 30 close. AMD closed at $534.06, down 12.7% over the same period. Harvard's mix has held up better than its former allocation would have.

Nvidia's decline followed a week in which its board reportedly weighed removing longtime CEO Jensen Huang, adding corporate uncertainty to a selloff that began before the quarter ended.

24/7 Wall St. calculated the AMD shares at about $173.2 million at Friday's prices, and the remaining Nvidia shares at about $84.3 million, assuming Harvard still holds them.

Is this a rotation within AI hardware?

Harvard raised its Taiwan Semiconductor ADR position by 85% to a stake worth $616.5 million. Because TSMC manufactures chips for both Nvidia and AMD, the combined moves point to a shift within AI hardware rather than a retreat from the sector altogether.

Two cloud providers took deeper cuts than Nvidia. Harvard trimmed Microsoft by 41% to $118.7 million, leaving AMD as the larger holding, and cut Alphabet Class A shares by 62%.

What is driving AMD's order book?

AMD data center sales rose 97% to $8.546 billion last quarter. Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle brought their first Helios racks online. Management expects 2027 revenue to grow more than 80%, with data center accounting for more than 80% of that year's total as rack deployments expand.

AMD remains less than a tenth of Nvidia's size in that segment, where the latest quarter produced $89.023 billion in data center revenue at a 75.0% non-GAAP gross margin.

CEO Lisa Su said: "demand is higher than supply."

What will Nvidia's guidance test?

Nvidia expects fiscal 2028 growth of approximately 70%. It guided to $108.0 billion in revenue with gross margins near 74.0%. In August, Nvidia's chief financial officer called the revenue guide "a supply-constrained outlook," framing the next quarter as a delivery test rather than a demand test.

Nvidia is expected to report after Tuesday's close, on November 17, although the company has not confirmed the date. If Nvidia hits guidance and keeps Vera Rubin on schedule, the selloff likely went too far.

Demand looks like the smaller concern, given the supply-constrained framing.

Where does valuation leave investors?

AMD carries a market value of $875.90 billion against $3.93 trillion for Nvidia. The premium on earnings is steeper still, with AMD at a trailing price-earnings ratio of 202 times and Nvidia at 33 times.

Free cash flow was $554 million as AMD's inventory rose to $11.463 billion, a combination that leaves the company more exposed if spending outruns customer demand.

TSMC offers exposure to whichever chip designer gains share, while power, cooling and networking suppliers provide another route into the same AI data center expansion. The source also points to seven such suppliers as a way to hold the same demand without paying a chip multiple.

What comes next?

Harvard's filing matters less than the operating results that follow. AMD must convert Helios rack deployments into the 80% revenue growth management expects for 2027, while Nvidia must deliver $108.0 billion at roughly 74% gross margin and keep Vera Rubin on schedule.

With both companies describing supply as the binding constraint, the next test is whether that scarcity converts into delivered revenue and steadier pricing when Nvidia reports on November 17.