AMD Continues AI Push with New Chips for Data Centers, Laptops

AMD is continuing its pursuit of the AI industry, announcing new AI chips for data centers and consumer-grade laptops and a set of tools for AI developers.

Among its announcements was an update to its chip designed to rival Nvidia’s H100, Instinct MI300X, designed for large language model training and inferencing.

AMD claims Instinct MI300X (pictured below) offers 1.6 times better performance running large language models like Llama 2 or Bloom compared to Nvidia’s flagship GPU line.

Credit: AMD

Microsoft was revealed as one of the customers using AMD’s hardware in its virtual machine lines. The new Azure ND MI300x v5 Virtual Machines are optimized for AI workloads. First showcased in November, they’re now in preview.

Another big name making use of AMD’s new MI300x hardware is Oracle, with its cloud computing platform set to add the new Instinct line to its high-performance accelerated computing instances for AI.

AMD president Victor Peng said: "AMD Instinct MI300 Series accelerators are designed with our most advanced technologies, delivering leadership performance, and will be in large-scale cloud and enterprise deployments.”

AMD also unveiled the MI300A Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), where a CPU and a GPU are combined on a single chip. The chipmaker claims it is the world’s first APU for high-performance computing and AI for data centers.

Related:How AMD Could Catch Up to Nvidia in the AI Chip Race

The MI300A APUs are meant to power faster AI training and offer 30 times more energy efficiency in server processors for AI training, the company behind it claims.

Ryzen 8040 mobile processors

Credit: AMD

AMD unveiled the new Ryzen 8040 mobile processors at the Advancing AI event. The CPUs have Ryzen AI, which powers AI features, built-in to optimize workloads on laptops, which AMD said will provide improved battery life through new power management features.

Jack Huynh, SVP and GM of AMD’s computing and graphics business, said: “The increased AI capabilities of the 8040 series will now handle larger models to enable the next phase of AI user experiences.”

The new processors are Windows 11-ready and can access out-of-the-box AI with Windows Studio Effects Pack, which allows users to efficiently manage cameras on their devices.

AMD claims the new line will also improve video editing and gaming speeds by 77% compared with rival hardware. The chips are set to power laptops in 2024 from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Razer as AMD continues its attempt to de-throne Intel as king of the laptop hardware market.

AI developer tools

AMD also announced that its Ryzen AI developer tools, which enable developers to run machine learning models on AMD devices, are now generally available.

Related:New Chip Designs to Boost AI Workload Processing

The tools are designed to enable devs to deploy machine learning models on Ryzen-powered laptops quickly and privately with Ryzen AI. AMD said developers can use the tools to “create the next killer app.”