AMD’s rise: From struggling chipmaker to a formidable competitor in AI semiconductors

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced an expected $3.5bn worth of MI 300 sales for AI processing. AMD aims to challenge Nvidia, currently dominating the GPU market. Despite Nvidia’s lead in software, AMD’s investment in research and development has enabled competitive semiconductor hardware. Collaborations and open-source initiatives further support AMD’s ambitions. Big tech firms, including Microsoft and Meta, have already planned to use AMD’s GPUs in their data centres. If Nvidia falters, AMD could capitalise on the opportunity, as it did with Intel before.
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) expects to sell MI 300s worth $3.5 billion this year, according to its recent quarterly earnings call. The company’s strong performance and market potential are evident, with revenues of $23 billion in 2023, four times higher than in 2014 when Lisa Su became CEO. Under her leadership, AMD’s market value has increased 100-fold to $270 billion, surpassing Nvidia’s valuation. AMD is now the second-most valuable semiconductor company in the US, overtaking Intel.

AMD aims to challenge Nvidia, the dominant player in the GPU market. Nvidia holds 86% of the global market for AI accelerator chips and offers highly regarded software called CUDA for fine-tuning performance. However, AMD is investing heavily in research and development, spending nearly $6 billion annually to develop competitive semiconductor hardware. Its new processor, the result of a ten-year investment, demonstrates its ability to compete with Nvidia on the hardware front.

To enhance its network and software offerings, AMD is forming partnerships with other firms and supporting open-source initiatives. Partnerships with networking gear manufacturers like Broadcom and Cisco aim to enhance AMD’s networking solutions, while its support for the Ultra Ethernet Consortium provides an alternative chip-to-chip communication solution to Nvidia’s InfiniBand.

Challenging Nvidia’s software dominance will be difficult, but AMD plans to make its software, ROCm, open-source and provide tools to ease the transition from Nvidia’s CUDA platform. Already seen as an alternative for AI companies, AMD has secured partnerships with major tech firms like Microsoft and Meta for the use of its GPUs in their data centres.

While investors were disappointed with the forecast for MI 300 shipments, causing a 3% dip in AMD’s share price, the company is well-positioned to seize opportunities if Nvidia were to stumble, as it did against Intel in the past. Overall, AMD’s transformation from a struggling chipmaker to a strong competitor in the semiconductor industry is highlighted, emphasizing its strategic market focus, significant investments in research and development, and partnerships with major tech firms for future growth and expansion.

Source: The Economist