AMD CEO unveils new AI chips

By Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis

SAN JOSE (Reuters) -Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su showed off a new crop of artificial intelligence chips that will compete with the flagship processors designed by Nvidia.

AMD shares were roughly flat in early afternoon trading.

Su took the stage to discuss the MI350 series and MI400 series AI chips that she said would compete with Nvidia’s Blackwell line of processors. During her speech, executives from X.AI, Meta Platforms and Oracle took to the stage to discuss their respective uses of AMD processors.

AMD’s Su reiterated the company’s product plans for the next year, which will roughly match the annual release schedule that Nvidia began with its Blackwell chips.

AMD has struggled to siphon off a portion of the quickly growing market for artificial intelligence chips from the dominant Nvidia. But the company has made a concerted effort to improve its software and produce a line of chips that rival Nvidia’s performance.

Thursday’s event, called “Advancing AI,” will focus on AMD’s data center chips and other hardware.

AMD completed the acquisition of server builder ZT Systems in March. As a result, AMD is expected to launch new complete AI systems, similar to several of the server-rack-sized products Nvidia produces.

Santa Clara, California-based AMD has made a series of small acquisitions in recent weeks and has added talent to its chip design and AI software teams. At the event, Su said the company had acquired 25 companies in the past year that were related to the company’s AI plans.

Last week, AMD hired the team from chip startup Untether AI. On Wednesday, AMD said it had hired several employees from generative AI startup Lamini, including the co-founder and CEO.

AMD’s software called ROCm has struggled to gain traction against Nvidia’s CUDA, which is seen by some industry insiders as a key part of protecting the company’s dominance.

When AMD reported earnings in May, Su said that despite increasingly aggressive curbs on AI chip exports to China, AMD still expected strong double-digit growth from AI chips.

(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Jose, Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler and Marguerita Choy)