AMD is one of the world’s biggest computer chip companies, best known for its fierce competition with Intel. It’s a rivalry that really kicked off in the early 2000s when AMD’s Athlon and Opteron processors saw great success. While AMD has often struggled to keep up with Intel, its latest Ryzen CPUs are some of the most competitive chips it has produced in years. AMD also acquired ATI in 2006, a 3D graphics card company. It now produces a variety of Radeon GPUs that compete with Nvidia’s GeForce line of graphics cards. AMD also produces the chips found in the latest PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and the Valve Steam Deck, and it re-entered the server market with its Epyc brand in 2017.
The company is laying off 4 percent of its staff, which translates to about 1,000 employees, reports CNBC. AMD has been transitioning into an AI chip company as it works to compete with Nvidia, which is now the most valuable company in the world thanks in large part to its AI chips.
AMD’s 7800X3D successor is also better at non-gaming workloads this time around.
Did you know SpaceX’s “latest generation broadband satellites” use AMD chips? The chipmaker just bragged about that in Q3 2024 earnings, and it’s news to me.
AMD’s product page says: “AMD Versal Adaptive SoCs combine application processors, real-time processors, and vector processors with traditional FPGA resources such as programmable logic fabric, DSP resources, and embedded memory.”
New PlayStations and Xboxes can’t come soon enough — Q3 gaming revenue is $462M, down from $648M last quarter and $922M before that, “primarily due to a decrease in semi-custom revenue.”
But Q3 earnings are up on the AI boom, once again pulling in double the data center dollars they did last year. No wonder AMD’s now prioritizing AI over gaming.
AMD says the MI325X, shipping Q4, will beat Nvidia’s H200. But Nvidia seems a step ahead; it’ll ship “several billion dollars” of its next-gen Blackwell B200 GPU in Q4, too. AMD says its Blackwell competitor, the MI355X, won’t arrive till 2H 2025.
AMD isn’t talking price, but told us it’ll undercut Nvidia when it comes to total cost of ownership.
AMD is acquiring ZT Systems, a leading provider of AI infrastructure. AMD is calling it a “next major step” for its AI training and inferencing solutions, in a move that will clearly help it compete with Nvidia’s dominance in AI offerings. ZT Systems will join the AMD’s data center solutions group once the $4.9 billion transaction closes.
OneXPlayer just spilled the beans on the AMD Radeon RX 7800M — cuz it’ll be in its new graphic dock, the OneXGPU2. As Liliputing points out, the last time someone designed a portable eGPU around a Radeon laptop chip, most other boutique handheld makers followed suit.
Big FPS boosts for handhelds when docked, I hear, but quite pricey too.
There are four CPUs in the new Ryzen 9000 series, which includes the beastly 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X flagship. Pricing still hasn’t been disclosed, but it’s currently expected to align with the Zen 4 series chips.
The Finland-based Silo AI is described as the “largest private AI lab in Europe” and has provided AI solutions for companies like Phillps, Rolls-Royce, and Unilever. In addition to Silo AI, AMD also acquired the AI startup Nod.ai last year as it aims to keep up with the likes of Nvidia.
IDC and Canalys disagree whether this is the second or third consecutive quarter of growth, but either way, the slump is definitively behind us — and we haven’t even seen the impact of this year’s Qualcomm, AMD and Intel chip launches yet.
NotebookCheck writes that the first Asus laptops with Ryzen AI 300 chips, codename Strix Point, will launch July 17th at an event originally scheduled for July 8th. Best Buy has changed its ship dates to July 28th, from July 15th originally.
Two weeks till launch, four weeks till availability.
AMD CEO Lisa Su is back in Taiwan to deliver the latest on AMD’s chips in an AI era. Nvidia has already hinted that AMD’s Strix CPUs are about to launch, but rumors have also revealed AMD could unveil its new Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs. AMD’s Computex keynote kicks off at 9:30PM ET / 6:30PM PT / 2:30AM UK (June 3rd). You can tune in below.
