The US semiconductor designer AMD launched a new chip on Oct. 10. The Instinct MI325X is meant to compete with the upcoming Blackwell line of chips from market leader Nvidia.
Graphics processing chips from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have been the lifeblood of the artificial intelligence boom, allowing the technology’s developers to train their powerful models and deploy them worldwide to users. Major tech companies have clamored to buy up valuable chips or pay to access large data centers full of them remotely through the cloud.
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, claimed that the market for AI data centers will balloon by 60% a year and hit $500 billion by 2028. Still, investors weren’t convinced by what AMD showcased: The company’s stock fell 4% in trading Thursday, perhaps because AMD didn’t announce any big new deals with customers, though it bounced back 2% on Friday.
AMD’s new chips feature increased memory and a new architecture that the company promises will improve performance relative to prior models. Nvidia is expected to release its much-anticipated Blackwell chips by early next year, as the rivalry between the two most important AI chip designers in the world only gets hotter.