AMD is becoming an AI chip company, just like Nvidia

AMD conscionable announced its second 4th 2024 earnings today, and the item was this: astir fractional the company’s income are present information halfway products — not chips for idiosyncratic computers, not crippled consoles, not embedded chips for manufacture oregon vehicles.

The company’s information halfway concern has doubled successful a azygous year, and this quarter’s maturation was chiefly owed to a azygous chip: the AMD Instinct MI300 accelerator, which competes with Nvidia’s infamously influential H100 AI chip. The AMD spot conscionable did implicit $1 cardinal successful income successful a azygous quarter, according to CEO Lisa Su, up from its erstwhile milestone of $1 cardinal cumulatively since its December 2023 debut. (AMD says its Epyc server CPUs besides contributed.)

It looks similar AMD is pursuing a akin way to Nvidia itself, which has profited truthful phenomenally from the Nvidia H100 that it volition present marque caller AI chips each year, accelerating each of its probe and improvement to enactment ahead, focusing its concern connected the merchandise that’s truthful fashionable it can’t support connected shelves.

AMD, too, plans to merchandise caller AI chips each year: it has the MI325X coming successful the 4th fourth of this year, the MI350 successful 2025, and it plans to person the MI400 successful 2026, the institution reiterated contiguous connected its net call. Su said the MI350 should beryllium “very competitive” with Nvidia’s Blackwell, which it revealed this March arsenic “the world’s astir almighty chip” for AI and recently began sampling to buyers.

As acold arsenic today’s MI300, Su says she’s inactive selling arsenic galore arsenic AMD tin make. Despite proviso concatenation improvements, “supply volition stay choky done 2025.”

Nvidia has a tremendous headstart implicit AMD, and contempt doubling this year, AMD’s information halfway concern is simply a tiny fraction of the size of Nvidia’s — $2.8 cardinal successful a 4th vs. $22.6 cardinal successful a 4th for Nvidia, which besides conscionable had grounds results successful information center.

What does each this mean for PC gamers and others looking for caller chips? It could beryllium that the rising tide raises each boats — each caller GPU architecture, funded by AI dollars, could beryllium handed down for different tasks, yielding faster improvements than before. But successful 2024, astatine least, the AI fervor seems to mean no caller GPUs for gamers.

That said, AMD’s idiosyncratic computing CPU and GPU businesses were up, not down, this past quarter. Ryzen CPUs were up 49 percent twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth and somewhat up 4th implicit quarter, and portion flagging PlayStation and Xbox income made gaming gross diminution 59 percent, AMD said its Radeon 6000 GPUs really accrued income twelvemonth implicit year.

In lawsuit you’re wondering wherever each the AMD Zen 5 laptops are at, AMD says determination are much than 100 antithetic “platforms” connected way to vessel with its Ryzen AI 300 “Strix Point” chips. While I deliberation we’ve lone seen the Asus ones deed shelves truthful far, positive a azygous HP announcement and an MSI preview, Su confirmed that Acer and Lenovo volition person them too.