We project $2 bn of sales from AI chip by 2024: AMD’s CTO

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has brought disruptive change across the whole industry, bringing much more capability; that said, it is also a very compute-hungry technology, said AMD's chief technology officer Mark Papermaster during an interview with TechCircle. Papermaster is in India to inaugurate AMD’s largest global design centre in India, spread across a 500,000-square-foot area. 

Elaborating further on the computing requirements of running generative AI applications, such as ChatGPT, Papermaster said that it requires capable compute engines, CPUs, and GPUs working together. “AMD has a strong game when it comes to both CPUs and gaming GPUs. For the last 8 years, we have been working on building a world-class GPU for AI. This effort of years has culminated in the development of MI300.”

Papermaster also added that there is a favourable sentiment from the market, as reflected in the number of pre-orders already received. “The launch of MI300 will be the fastest ramp to $1 billion, which is the highest in AMD’s history. We also project $2 billion in sales from this product by 2024,” he added. 

Further, to strengthen the application stack, partners like HuggingFace and MosaicML are already testing and releasing their models on AMD, added Papermaster. Speaking on partnerships, he said that AMD continues to collaborate with partners that align with its objectives. In the last few months, AMD has acquired two AI startups — Misology and nod.ai. Nod.ai, in particular, also has operations in India.

Speaking of AMD in India, Jaya Jagadish, the India country head said that the company’s growth in the country, which houses 25% of the overall workforce strength, has been ‘phenomenal’. She added that AMD India has grown up to five times in the last six years.

To be sure, at the Semicon India 2023 in July 2023, AMD announced an investment of $400 million in the country. To date, 25% of this investment has already been spent towards building the new Bengaluru centre, hiring, and other expenses, the company has said. Today, it marked the unveiling of the first phase of the facility, and the second phase is slated to come up by the third quarter of next year.