Semiconductor shares rose in Wednesday trading. AMD rose 7%; Arm rose 6%; SOXL, Nvidia rose 3%; Wolfspeed rose 2%; Marvell, TSMC rose 1%.

Advanced Micro Devices stock was rising sharply on Wednesday in response to news of an expanded share buyback program and prospective sales of chips to Saudi Arabia.  

AMD said its board of directors approved a new $6 billion stock buyback program. Added to the existing plan, that gives the company authority to repurchase around $10 billion worth of shares.  

"Our expanded share repurchase program reflects the Board ’ s confidence in AMD ’ s strategic direction, growth prospects, and ability to consistently generate strong free cash flow," said AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su in a statement.  

The buyback news came after Saudi Arabia ’ s Humain said Tuesday it would join with AMD to build a network of AI computing centers. The parties will invest up to $10 billion to deploy 500 megawatts of AI computing capacity over the next five years.