By Samrhitha A

(Reuters) -Shares of Advanced Micro Devices jumped 8% on Wednesday, after an upbeat AI chip sales forecast signaled the company was making progress in its bid to catch up with market leader Nvidia.

The optimism over AI chip sales helped ease worries about a disappointing fourth-quarter forecast and put it on course for market value gains of nearly $13 billion, based on the $106.41 share price.

CEO Lisa Su on Tuesday provided a 2024 sales forecast for the first time for the MI300 chips, designed to compete against the advanced H100 chips sold by Nvidia.

She projected annual sales of more than $2 billion, and raised the chip's current-quarter revenue expectations by $100 million.

That would make the MI300 the fastest product to ramp to $1 billion in sales in AMD's history.

"Hitting this milestone is likely a key first step towards proving AMD is the clear second source to Nvidia in the AI accelerator market," said analysts at TD Cowen.

The CEO also said the MI300 chips had won commitments from "multiple, large hyperscale customers", a term that refers to large tech and cloud computing companies.

AMD's shares have gained 61% this year through last close, but those gains pale in comparison to Nvidia's 184% rally.

Still, the conservative forecast and weakness in several of AMD's markets led at least 18 analysts to cut their price targets on the stock, pushing down the median view to $130, per LSEG data.

"Forecasts were below our prior estimates ... and it's quite possible that such estimates could be conservative," Morningstar analyst Brian Colello said.

While the PC market has been seeing signs of recovery, a weak gaming market and decline in demand for programmable chips used by industries such as wireless communications, healthcare and automotive have been a drag.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)