Under the Radar: AMD on innovation cycles, big tech spending and the evolution of AI architecture in the next five years

The Evening Runway with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

Chipmakers take the centre stage today as we speak to a high performance and adaptive computing leader that is at the forefront of powering generative artificial intelligence.

Founded in 1969 as a Silicon Valley startup, our guest for today is fabless chipmaker and chip designer Advanced Micro Devices or AMD.

The company had driven innovation in high performance computing, graphics and visualisation technologies for over half a century. It currently serves billions of people and leads Fortune 500 companies and scientific research innovations in improving the way people work, live and play.

Now, AMD is a company to watch particularly at this moment in time where we see a rush by global big techs to invest in generative AI infrastructure.

In particular, a Forbes article noted that global big techs spent over US$150 billion in capital expenditure on AI infrastructure for the past year dating from August 2024.

The massive spending raises questions as to how exactly generative AI would augment our daily lives and how big techs can generate returns on the massive spending.

That also means questions as to and whether the demand for generative AI solutions can continue to bolster demand for AI chips at the likes of AMD into the longer term.

At the same time, media reports out in September 2024 cited remarks by AMD CEO Lisa Su where she believes that graphic processing units may not be the architecture of choice for firms working on AI in the next five years.

Su noted that there would be a broadening beyond GPUs in the form of custom AI chips. But what does it mean for AMD in terms of its product offerings and how it is positioning itself for its next bound of growth?

On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Peter Chambers, Managing Director, Sales, APAC & Country Manager, Australia, AMD.

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