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AMD launches new AI chips to take on leader Nvidia
By Max A. Cherney and Arsheeya Bajwa
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Advanced Micro Devices unveiled its latest artificial intelligence processors on Monday and detailed its plan to develop AI chips over the next two years in a bid to challenge industry leader Nvidia.
At the Computex technology fair in Taipei, AMD CEO Lisa Su presented the MI325X accelerator, which is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The race to develop generative artificial intelligence programs has led to enormous demand for advanced chips used in AI data centers capable of supporting these complex applications.
AMD has been racing to compete with Nvidia, which currently dominates the lucrative AI semiconductor market and holds around 80% of its share.
Since last year, Nvidia has made it clear to investors that it plans to shorten its release cycle to annually, and now AMD has done the same.
“AI is clearly our number one priority as a company and we really leverage all the development capacity within the company to do this,” Su told reporters.
“This annual cadence exists because the market demands newer products and capabilities… Every year we have the next big thing, so we always have the most competitive portfolio.”
AMD has also launched an upcoming chip series titled MI350, which is expected to be available in 2025 and will be based on a new chip architecture.
Compared to the MI300 series of currently available AI chips, AMD said it expects the MI350 to perform 35 times better in inference – the process of computing generative AI responses.
Additionally, AMD revealed the MI400 series, which will arrive in 2026 and will be based on an architecture called “Next”.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Sunday that the company’s next-generation AI chip platform, called Rubin, expected to launch in 2026, would include GPUs, CPUs and networking chips.
Investors, who have poured billions of dollars into Wall Street’s pick-and-shovel trade, have been looking to long-term updates from chip companies to gauge the longevity of genAI’s growing recovery, which has so far shown no signs of slowing.
AMD shares remained flat, while Nvidia rose more than 3% on Monday. AMD’s value has more than doubled since the start of 2023, but the increase pales in comparison to the more than sevenfold increase in Nvidia shares over the same period.
“While the proof is in the pudding, there is no doubt that AMD is taking Nvidia head on and companies looking for alternatives to Nvidia will certainly be happy to hear what AMD has to say,” said Bob O’, analyst- head of Technalysis Research. Donnel.
The story continues
AMD’s Su said in April that the company expects AI chip sales of about $4 billion in 2024, a $500 million increase from its previous estimate.
At the Computex event, AMD said its latest generation of central processor units will likely be available in the second half of 2024.
While companies generally prioritize spending on AI chips in data centers, some AMD CPUs are used in conjunction with graphics processing units, although the ratio is skewed in favor of GPUs.
AMD has detailed the architecture for its new neural processing units (NPUs), which are dedicated to handling on-device AI tasks in AI PCs.
Chipmakers have been banking on additional AI capabilities to drive growth in the PC market as it emerges from a years-long recession.
PC vendors like HP and Lenovo will release devices that include AMD’s AI PC chips. AMD said its processors exceed Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC requirements.
(Reporting by Max A Cherney and Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Will Dunham, Rashmi Aich and Arun Koyyur)