Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) unveiled its latest artificial intelligence processors on Monday, outlining its ambitious plans to develop AI chips over the next two years to compete with industry leader Nvidia.
At the Computex technology trade show in Taipei, AMD CEO Lisa Su introduced the MI325X accelerator, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The growing demand for generative artificial intelligence programs has spurred a race to develop advanced chips for AI data centers.
AMD has been striving to compete with Nvidia, which dominates about 80% of the AI semiconductor market.
Nvidia has committed to an annual release cycle for its chips, and AMD is now adopting a similar strategy.
“AI is clearly our number one priority as a company, and we have really harnessed all of the development capability within the company to do that,” Su told reporters.
“This annual cadence is something that is there because the market requires newer products and newer capabilities… Every year we have the next big thing such that we always have the most competitive portfolio.”
AMD also announced the upcoming MI350 series of chips, expected in 2025, which will feature new chip architecture.
AMD anticipates that the MI350 will perform 35 times better in inference compared to the current MI300 series.
Additionally, AMD revealed the MI400 series, set for 2026, based on an architecture named “Next”.
On Sunday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang introduced the company’s next-generation AI chip platform, Rubin, set for a 2026 rollout, including GPUs, CPUs, and networking chips.
Investors have been keen on longer-term updates from chip firms to assess the sustainability of the booming AI market.
AMD’s shares remained steady, while Nvidia’s shares rose over 3% on Monday.
AMD’s stock has more than doubled in value since the start of 2023, though this increase is modest compared to Nvidia’s more than seven-fold rise in the same period.
“While the proof will be in the pudding, there’s no doubt that AMD is taking Nvidia heads-on and companies looking for alternatives to Nvidia are bound to be happy to hear what AMD had to say,” said Technalysis Research chief analyst Bob O’Donnell.
Su stated in April that AMD expects AI chip sales to reach approximately $4 billion in 2024, an increase of $500 million from previous estimates.
At Computex, AMD announced that its latest generation of central processor units will likely be available in the second half of 2024.
AMD also detailed its new neural processing units (NPUs) for handling on-device AI tasks in AI PCs.
PC providers such as HP and Lenovo will release devices featuring AMD’s AI PC chips, which exceed Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC requirements.