AMD looks to new chips to grab share from Intel, Nvidia
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AMD CEO Lisa Su, holding up one of the company's new "Turin" server processors. Photo: Ina Fried/Axios
Semiconductor maker AMD announced a slew of new chips on Thursday as it seeks to take full advantage of the AI-driven boom in computing demand.
Why it matters: In addition to taking on Intel in the market for server and PC processors, AMD is looking to grab more of the GPU market today dominated by Nvidia.
Driving the news: At its "Advancing AI" event in San Francisco, AMD announced:
- Its latest server chip, code-named Turin, which AMD CEO Lisa Su said offers significant performance benefits over Intel's latest Xeon processors.
- The MI325X, an updated version of AMD's Instinct GPU, where it competes directly with Nvidia. AMD also previewed the MI350, which it expects to ship in the second half of next year.
- Other semiconductors for faster networking, as well as a version of its PC chip designed to power the first Copilot+ PCs designed specifically for business use.
What they're saying: "There is no 'one size fits all,' " Su said. "We certainly have the best portfolio in the industry."
The big picture: AMD, which for most of its history served as a smaller rival to Intel for PC chips, has been gaining ground in chips for servers and other parts of the data center.
- Su said AMD's Epyc server chip now has 34 percent share, the most it has ever had.
- AMD has a long way to go versus Nvidia on the GPU side. Nvidia holds about 88 percent of the global revenue from GPUs that go into servers, said Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies.
Yes, but: AMD has been gaining and has a much larger share of the market when it comes to the largest data center operators, known as hyperscalers, Bajarin said.
Between the lines: AMD stressed its focus on an open ecosystem, especially on the software side, where it is aiming to draw a contrast between its approach and that of Nvidia, which has a growing proprietary software business.
- Su trotted out a host of partners to emphasize her point, including executives from Google, Meta, Oracle and Databricks.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared with Su in a pre-recorded video conversation where he touted not only the rate of innovation in AI but also the speed with which it is being adopted globally.
- "The rate of diffusion of this throughout the world is pretty exciting," Nadella said.
