AMD Unveils Cutting-Edge AI Chip, Setting Sights on Nvidia's Blackwell Series

11.10.2024

AMD has introduced its new AI chip, the Instinct MI325X, with production expected to begin by the end of 2024. This chip is designed to directly compete with Nvidia’s data center GPUs, which have been the market leaders in high-demand AI applications, particularly in massive data centers that power systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The announcement reflects AMD’s intent to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in a growing market, which is projected to reach $500 billion by 2028. According to AMD CEO Lisa Su, the demand for AI is exceeding expectations, fueling further investment in AI technologies worldwide.

While AMD did not announce major new cloud or internet customers at the event, it emphasized that existing clients such as Meta and Microsoft already use its GPUs for some applications. Despite this, Nvidia still controls over 90% of the market for data center AI chips, a position AMD is aiming to change by improving its hardware and competing software. One of AMD’s key challenges is Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem, which has become a standard for AI developers. To counter this, AMD is enhancing its own software, ROCm, to encourage more developers to switch over to its AI chips, positioning them as strong alternatives in areas like content creation and prediction-making.

The MI325X chip will be pitted against Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell series, which is expected to ship in early 2025. AMD has highlighted its AI chip’s advanced memory capabilities, enabling it to outperform some of Nvidia’s products when running models like Meta’s Llama AI. The company claims the MI325 platform can deliver up to 40% more inference performance on Llama 3.1 compared to Nvidia’s H200 chip, making it a formidable competitor in high-performance AI tasks.

In addition to its AI chip development, AMD is also focusing on its core CPU business. During the event, AMD unveiled its latest EPYC 5th Gen CPUs, designed to power everything from low-cost systems to supercomputers. These CPUs are particularly suited for AI workloads, making them complementary to AMD’s GPUs. The EPYC line includes chips ranging from 8-core processors priced at $527 to 192-core supercomputer chips that cost over $14,000. AMD hopes this new CPU line will help it gain market share from Intel, the leader in data center CPUs.

Overall, AMD is accelerating its product roadmap in both AI chips and CPUs to take advantage of the booming demand in the AI sector. Although AMD’s stock has not surged as much as Nvidia’s, which saw a 175% increase in 2024, the successful launch of the MI325X could attract investors looking for alternatives in the AI chip market.