AMD unveils new AI chips amid rising competition with Nvidia, Intel
Lisa Su, chair and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), during the AMD Advancing AI event in San Jose, California, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. unveiled new so-called accelerator chips that it said will be able to run artificial intelligence software faster than rival products. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
AMD on Monday announced new artificial intelligence chips as it seeks to establish itself as a leader amid competition with the likes of Nvidia and Intel.
“AI is our number one priority and we’re at the beginning of an incredibly exciting time for the industry as AI transforms virtually every business, improves our quality of life, and reshapes every part of the computing market,” chair and CEO Lisa Su said during the Computex tech conference in Taipei.
During a keynote address, Su unveiled the Ryzen AI 300 series for next-generation AI laptops. The line could compete directly with Intel’s upcoming Lunar Lake and Qualcomm‘s Snapdragon X. And in partnership with Microsoft, these chips will power laptops equipped with the tech giant’s AI chatbot Copilot.
Su also revealed the new Ryzen 9000 series for desktops, calling them “the world’s fastest consumer PC processors” for gaming and content creation.
Both lines are expected to launch in July. This comes less than two months after AMD’s April announcement of new processors that can run AI workloads – the Ryzen Pro 8040 for laptops and the Ryzen Pro 8000 for desktops.
Chip firms are racing to launch faster and more powerful processors to stay relevant in the AI race. Nvidia on Sunday unveiled its next generation of AI chips named “Rubin” to succeed the previous “Blackwell” model, which was just announced in March.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has pledged to release new AI chip tech every year, faster than the company’s previous two-year timeline. AMD also plans to release new AI chip tech every year.
AMD on Monday detailed its data center chip roadmap, with the Instinct MI325X accelerators — a beefed up version of the MI300 series — planned for availability in the fourth quarter. The Instinct MI350 series, to be built on next-generation architecture, is set to be released in 2025 while the Instinct MI400 series is planned for 2026.
Su on Monday also previewed the latest fifth-generation EPYC server processors, which are expected to be launched in the second half of this year to “continue the leadership performance and efficiency of the AMD EPYC processor family.”
Like Nvidia, AMD doesn’t manufacture its own chips. Instead, it outsources the manufacturing of its chips to foundries, mainly to the world’s largest contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
The Ryzen AI 300, Ryzen 9000 and 5th-gen EPYC chips will be built on the latest “Zen 5” architecture.
“You’re gonna see Zen 5 everywhere from supercomputers to data centers and PCs,” said Su.
