Latest news with #ZTSystems
CTV News
13-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
AMD turns to AI startups to inform chip, software design
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chips are displayed at the Micro Center computer store in Santa Clara, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) SAN JOSE -- Advanced Micro Devices has forged close ties to a batch of artificial intelligence startups as part of the company's effort to bolster its software and forge superior chip designs. As AI companies seek alternatives to Nvidia's chips, AMD has begun to expand its plans to build a viable competing line of hardware, acquiring companies such as server maker ZT Systems in its quest to achieve that goal. But to build a successful line of chips also requires a powerful set of software to efficiently run the programs built by AI developers. AMD has acquired several small software companies in recent weeks in a bid to boost its talent, and it has been working to beef up its set of software, broadly known as ROCm. 'This will be a very thoughtful, deliberate, multi-generational journey for us,' said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AI at AMD. AMD has committed to improve its ROCm and other software, which is a boon to customers such as AI enterprise startup Cohere, as it results in speedy changes and the addition of new features. Cohere is focused on building AI models that are tailored for large businesses versus the foundational AI models that companies like OpenAI and others target. AMD has made important strides in improving its software, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said in an interview with Reuters. Changing Cohere's software to run on AMD chips was a process that previously took weeks and now happens in only 'days,' Gomez said. Gomez declined to disclose exactly how much of Cohere's software relies on AMD chips but called it a 'meaningful segment of our compute base' around the world. OpenAI influence OpenAI has had significant influence on the design of the forthcoming MI450 series of AI chips, said Forrest Norrod, an executive vice president at AMD. AMD's MI400 series of chips will be the basis for a new server called 'Helios' that the company plans to release next year. Nvidia too has engineered whole servers in part because AI computations require hundreds or thousands of chips strung together. OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared on stage at AMD's Thursday event in San Jose, and discussed the partnership between the two companies in broad terms. Norrod said that OpenAI's requests had a big influence on how AMD designed the MI450 series memory architecture and how the hardware can scale up to thousands of chips necessary to build and run AI applications. The ChatGPT creator also influenced what kinds of mathematical operations the chips are optimized for. '(OpenAI) has given us a lot of feedback that, I think, heavily informed our design,' Norrod said. Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San JoseEditing by Shri Navaratnam, Reuters
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
AMD turns to AI startups to inform chip, software design
SAN JOSE, June 13 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices has forged close ties to a batch of artificial intelligence startups as part of the company's effort to bolster its software and forge superior chip designs. As AI companies seek alternatives to Nvidia's chips, AMD has begun to expand its plans to build a viable competing line of hardware, acquiring companies such as server maker ZT Systems in its quest to achieve that goal. But to build a successful line of chips also requires a powerful set of software to efficiently run the programs built by AI developers. AMD has acquired several small software companies in recent weeks in a bid to boost its talent, and it has been working to beef up its set of software, broadly known as ROCm. "This will be a very thoughtful, deliberate, multi-generational journey for us," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AI at AMD. AMD has committed to improve its ROCm and other software, which is a boon to customers such as AI enterprise startup Cohere, as it results in speedy changes and the addition of new features. Cohere is focused on building AI models that are tailored for large businesses versus the foundational AI models that companies like OpenAI and others target. AMD has made important strides in improving its software, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said in an interview with Reuters. Changing Cohere's software to run on AMD chips was a process that previously took weeks and now happens in only "days," Gomez said. Gomez declined to disclose exactly how much of Cohere's software relies on AMD chips but called it a "meaningful segment of our compute base" around the world. OpenAI has had significant influence on the design of the forthcoming MI450 series of AI chips, said Forrest Norrod, an executive vice president at AMD. AMD's MI400 series of chips will be the basis for a new server called "Helios" that the company plans to release next year. Nvidia too has engineered whole servers in part because AI computations require hundreds or thousands of chips strung together. OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared on stage at AMD's Thursday event in San Jose, and discussed the partnership between the two companies in broad terms. Norrod said that OpenAI's requests had a big influence on how AMD designed the MI450 series memory architecture and how the hardware can scale up to thousands of chips necessary to build and run AI applications. The ChatGPT creator also influenced what kinds of mathematical operations the chips are optimized for. "(OpenAI) has given us a lot of feedback that, I think, heavily informed our design," Norrod said.
Zawya
13-06-2025
- Business
- Zawya
AMD turns to AI startups to inform chip, software design
Advanced Micro Devices has forged close ties to a batch of artificial intelligence startups as part of the company's effort to bolster its software and forge superior chip designs. As AI companies seek alternatives to Nvidia's chips, AMD has begun to expand its plans to build a viable competing line of hardware, acquiring companies such as server maker ZT Systems in its quest to achieve that goal. But to build a successful line of chips also requires a powerful set of software to efficiently run the programs built by AI developers. AMD has acquired several small software companies in recent weeks in a bid to boost its talent, and it has been working to beef up its set of software, broadly known as ROCm. "This will be a very thoughtful, deliberate, multi-generational journey for us," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AI at AMD. AMD has committed to improve its ROCm and other software, which is a boon to customers such as AI enterprise startup Cohere, as it results in speedy changes and the addition of new features. Cohere is focused on building AI models that are tailored for large businesses versus the foundational AI models that companies like OpenAI and others target. AMD has made important strides in improving its software, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said in an interview with Reuters. Changing Cohere's software to run on AMD chips was a process that previously took weeks and now happens in only "days," Gomez said. Gomez declined to disclose exactly how much of Cohere's software relies on AMD chips but called it a "meaningful segment of our compute base" around the world. OPENAI INFLUENCE OpenAI has had significant influence on the design of the forthcoming MI450 series of AI chips, said Forrest Norrod, an executive vice president at AMD. AMD's MI400 series of chips will be the basis for a new server called "Helios" that the company plans to release next year. Nvidia too has engineered whole servers in part because AI computations require hundreds or thousands of chips strung together. OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared on stage at AMD's Thursday event in San Jose, and discussed the partnership between the two companies in broad terms. Norrod said that OpenAI's requests had a big influence on how AMD designed the MI450 series memory architecture and how the hardware can scale up to thousands of chips necessary to build and run AI applications. The ChatGPT creator also influenced what kinds of mathematical operations the chips are optimized for. "(OpenAI) has given us a lot of feedback that, I think, heavily informed our design," Norrod said. (Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Jose Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AMD's Shopping Spree Continues. Is the AI Stock a Buy?
AMD just acquired Brium, an AI software company. The move follows several acquisitions in AI, including ZT Systems. The stock is reasonably priced after falling sharply over the last year. 10 stocks we like better than Advanced Micro Devices › AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) might be the biggest sleeper stock in the artificial intelligence (AI) chip business right now. The stock is down nearly 50% from its peak last year. It seems investors got ahead of themselves in betting on AMD to break through in AI chips and challenge Nvidia. However, while the stock has tumbled, AMD's data center business is gaining traction. Revenue in the AI-focused segment jumped 57% in its first quarter to $3.7 billion, driven by growth in its EPYC central processing unit (CPU) and Instinct graphics processing unit (GPU) franchises. In addition to that momentum, AMD has also been making a number of moves to rearrange its portfolio to position it better for the AI era. In the first quarter, AMD acquired ZT Systems for $4.9 billion to help provide rack-scale solutions and high-performance systems, scaling up from its semiconductor business. After making that move, AMD turned around and said it would sell the server manufacturing business to Sanmina for $3 billion and continue to focus on design, rather than manufacturing. AMD is retaining ZT Systems' "rack-scale AI solutions design and customer enablement expertise." However, that's not the only deal AMD has made to advance its AI ambitions. It just announced the acquisition of Brium, a technology company that helps make AI software work across various hardware platforms. The move should help AMD better compete with Nvidia, as AI workloads are typically optimized for Nvidia's CUDA programming ecosystem. The deal was AMD's fourth AI acquisition in the last two years (the others being Silo AI, and Mipsology). Silo AI was the largest private AI lab in Europe before AMD acquired it for $665 million, giving the company a team of world-class AI scientists and engineers. an AI software company, gave AMD a similar boost in AI software for products like the Instinct data center GPUs, and Mipsology helped beef up AMD's inference software capabilities. None of these acquisitions have had a significant impact on AMD's share price, but combined, the moves show the company is clearly being aggressive with its AI strategy and that it understands the assignment. It needs to beef up its AI ecosystem to go beyond chips, which the ZT Systems deals help accomplish, and it needs to challenge the supremacy of CUDA or find a way around it. AMD has a similar programming software platform called ROCm, but it hasn't gained nearly as much adoption as CUDA. AMD's success in the future will be determined in large part by how it competes in AI and whether it can close the gap with Nvidia in programming software and other capabilities. The company is likely to continue making acquisitions. For a company with as much upside potential as AMD, the stock looks surprisingly affordable at a forward P/E of less than 30. In its first quarter, AMD reported revenue growth of 36% to $7.44 billion and a 55% increase in adjusted earnings per share to $0.96. Hyperscalers like Oracle and Google Cloud are expanding deployments of EPYC CPUs. AMD's client segment delivered strong growth in the quarter with revenue up 68% to $2.3 billion. For the second quarter, the company expects revenue growth of 27% to $7.4 billion, though that includes an $800 million impairment related to Chinese export restrictions. AMD isn't a sure thing in AI, but the company has a history of success under CEO Lisa Su, and the acquisitions are enhancing its position and improving its prospects. At the current valuation, AMD looks like a smart buy based on its current growth rate and its potential in the large and expanding AI market. Before you buy stock in Advanced Micro Devices, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Advanced Micro Devices wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Jeremy Bowman has positions in Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. AMD's Shopping Spree Continues. Is the AI Stock a Buy? was originally published by The Motley Fool
CNA
28-05-2025
- Business
- CNA
AMD buys Enosemi to boost co-packaged optics offerings
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices said on Wednesday it has acquired Enosemi, a builder of photonic integrated circuits, to expand its co-packaged optics offerings across AI systems. AMD did not disclose the financial details of the deal. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have pinned their hopes on the optics technology, which they believe will be central to building ever-larger computers for AI systems. Co-packaged optics, as the emerging technology is called, uses laser light to send information on fiber optic cables between chips, resulting in faster and more energy-efficient connections compared to traditional copper cables. AMD acquired server maker ZT Systems for $4.9 billion earlier this year to expand its portfolio of artificial intelligence chips and hardware, and better compete with AI giant Nvidia.
