Lisa
Su
displays
an
AMD
Instinct
MI300
chip
as
she
delivers
a
keynote
address
at
CES
2023
in
Las
Vegas,
Nevada,
Jan.
4,
2023.
David
Becker
|
Getty
Images
Meta,
OpenAI,
and
Microsoft
said
at
an
AMD
investor
event
Wednesday
they
will
use
AMD’s
newest
AI
chip,
the
Instinct
MI300X.
It’s
the
biggest
sign
so
far
that
technology
companies
are
searching
for
alternatives
to
the
expensive
Nvidia
graphics
processors
that
have
been
essential
for
creating
and
deploying
artificial
intelligence
programs
such
as
OpenAI’s
ChatGPT.
If
AMD’s
latest
high-end
chip
is
good
enough
for
the
technology
companies
and
cloud
service
providers
building
and
serving
AI
models
when
it
starts
shipping
early
next
year,
it
could
lower
costs
for
developing
AI
models
and
put
competitive
pressure
on
Nvidia’s
surging
AI
chip
sales
growth.
“All
of
the
interest
is
in
big
iron
and
big
GPUs
for
the
cloud,”
AMD
CEO
Lisa
Su
said
Wednesday.
AMD
says
the
MI300X
is
based
on
a
new
architecture,
which
often
leads
to
significant
performance
gains.
Its
most
distinctive
feature
is
that
it
has
192GB
of
a
cutting-edge,
high-performance
type
of
memory
known
as
HBM3,
which
transfers
data
faster
and
can
fit
larger
AI
models.
Su
directly
compared
the
MI300X
and
the
systems
built
with
it
to
Nvidia’s
main
AI
GPU,
the
H100.
“What
this
performance
does
is
it
just
directly
translates
into
a
better
user
experience,”
Su
said.
“When
you
ask
a
model
something,
you’d
like
it
to
come
back
faster,
especially
as
responses
get
more
complicated.”
The
main
question
facing
AMD
is
whether
companies
that
have
been
building
on
Nvidia
will
invest
the
time
and
money
to
add
another
GPU
supplier.
“It
takes
work
to
adopt
AMD,”
Su
said.
AMD
on
Wednesday
told
investors
and
partners
that
it
had
improved
its
software
suite
called
ROCm
to
compete
with
Nvidia’s
industry
standard
CUDA
software,
addressing
a
key
shortcoming
that
had
been
one
of
the
primary
reasons
AI
developers
currently
prefer
Nvidia.
Price
will
also
be
important.
AMD
didn’t
reveal
pricing
for
the
MI300X
on
Wednesday,
but
Nvidia’s
can
cost
around
$40,000
for
one
chip,
and
Su
told
reporters
that
AMD’s
chip
would
have
to
cost
less
to
purchase
and
operate
than
Nvidia’s
in
order
to
persuade
customers
to
buy
it.
Who
says
they’ll
use
the
MI300X?
AMD
MI300X
accelerator
for
artificial
intelligence.
On
Wednesday,
AMD
said
it
had
already
signed
up
some
of
the
companies
most
hungry
for
GPUs
to
use
the
chip.
Meta
and
Microsoft
were
the
two
largest
purchasers
of
Nvidia
H100
GPUs
in
2023,
according
to
a
recent
report
from
research
firm
Omidia.
Meta
said
it
will
use
MI300X
GPUs
for
AI
inference
workloads
such
as
processing
AI
stickers,
image
editing,
and
operating
its
assistant.
Microsoft’s
CTO,
Kevin
Scott,
said
the
company
would
offer
access
to
MI300X
chips
through
its
Azure
web
service.
Oracle‘s
cloud
will
also
use
the
chips.
OpenAI
said
it
would
support
AMD
GPUs
in
one
of
its
software
products,
called
Triton,
which
isn’t
a
big
large
language
model
like
GPT
but
is
used
in
AI
research
to
access
chip
features.
AMD
isn’t
forecasting
massive
sales
for
the
chip
yet,
only
projecting
about
$2
billion
in
total
data
center
GPU
revenue
in
2024.
Nvidia
reported
more
than
$14
billion
in
data
center
sales
in
the
most
recent
quarter
alone,
although
that
metric
includes
chips
other
than
GPUs.
However,
AMD
says
the
total
market
for
AI
GPUs
could
climb
to
$400
billion
over
the
next
four
years,
doubling
the
company’s
previous
projection.
This
shows
how
high
expectations
are
and
how
coveted
high-end
AI
chips
have
become
—
and
why
the
company
is
now
focusing
investor
attention
on
the
product
line.
Su
also
suggested
to
reporters
that
AMD
doesn’t
think
that
it
needs
to
beat
Nvidia
to
do
well
in
the
market.
“I
think
it’s
clear
to
say
that
Nvidia
has
to
be
the
vast
majority
of
that
right
now,”
Su
told
reporters,
referring
to
the
AI
chip
market.
“We
believe
it
could
be
$400
billion-plus
in
2027.
And
we
could
get
a
nice
piece
of
that.”
