Chip stocks were back in the driver's seat on Monday as the PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) surged more than 3%.

An upcoming state dinner between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with numerous AI titans expected to be in attendance, fueled optimism about the AI trade.

Chipmaker AMD soared to an all-time high above $610 a share, giving it a $1 trillion market cap during the trading session.

Shares of central processing unit designer Arm Holdings (ARM) and chipmaker Intel both rose 10% as social media giant Meta's (META) new AI agent MUSE sparked a broader rally among server CPU suppliers.

Semiconductor stocks on Monday Sept 21

The chip sector has seen additional tailwinds, including a report last week that SK Hynix (SKHY) is exploring a deal with Intel (INTC).

Shares of Intel have rallied more than 35% over the past month, while AMD and ARM Holdings are up nearly 30% over the same period, according to Yahoo Finance's AlphaSpace data.

AI chip heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA) has gained more than 4% over the past month.

Semiconductor stocks over past month

Chip stocks have been rebounding from a slump after hitting a peak in July amid concerns about overinvestment and, more recently, worries over a slowdown flagged by AI titans.

However, Wall Street sees little sign of a spending slowdown as hyperscalers race to build out data centers and AI inference usage surges.

Last week, BofA analyst Vivek Arya argued that the semiconductor industry has a long runway ahead, citing hardware and power constraints.

Arya raised his 2030 chip market estimate from $2.7 trillion to $3.2 trillion, driven by overwhelming demand for data center capacity, advanced logic, and memory equipment.

Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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