** AMD AMD.O shares rise in early trading after Microsoft expanded its partnership with the chipmaker across AI GPUs, CPUs and networking on Azure

** AMD shares last up 3.5%, MSFT is marginally down

** Microsoft to deploy AMD Helios Rackscale at scale on Azure for frontier AI model inference

** AMD to begin shipping Helios systems in H2 2026, with Microsoft among the initial customers

** As of last close, AMD has soared 131.5% YTD, whereas MSFT shares are down ~18.6%