AMD, a leading chipmaker that competes with Intel and Nvidia, saw its stock price increase by 5% on Thursday, after Microsoft’s chief technology officer Kevin Scott spoke highly of its artificial intelligence (AI) products at the Code conference in Dana Point, California, on Wednesday. Scott said that AMD’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are becoming more and more important for the AI market, and that Microsoft and AMD have a long and fruitful partnership. AMD’s stock price closed at $104.15 on Thursday, up from $99.16 on Wednesday.

AMD’s AI Products

AMD has been developing its own AI products, especially its GPUs, which are specialized chips that can perform complex calculations faster and more efficiently than general-purpose chips. GPUs are widely used for AI applications, such as image recognition, natural language processing, and self-driving cars. AMD announced in June that it would start sampling its MI300X chip with clients in the third quarter of 2023. The MI300X is a GPU designed specifically for AI models, and it is based on the RDNA 3 architecture, which is also used for AMD’s gaming GPUs.

AMD faces stiff competition from Nvidia, which dominates the AI chip market with its CUDA platform and its Ampere architecture. Nvidia has also been acquiring other AI companies, such as Arm and DeepMap, to expand its portfolio and capabilities. Nvidia reported a revenue of $6.51 billion in the second quarter of 2023, up 68% year-over-year, and it expects a revenue of $6.8 billion in the third quarter, up 170% year-over-year.

Microsoft and AMD’s Partnership

Microsoft and AMD have a long history of collaboration, spanning PCs, game consoles, and the cloud. Microsoft uses AMD’s chips for some of its products and services, such as the Surface Laptop 4, the Xbox Series X and S, and the Azure cloud computing platform. Microsoft also offers some AMD GPUs to its Azure cloud customers, in addition to powering some of its computers and its Xbox consoles with AMD chips. In May, AMD said Microsoft had started offering a cloud networking service to clients, drawing on the chipmaker’s Pensando products.

At Code, Scott said that Microsoft is interested in AMD’s GPUs for its AI projects, such as its large language models that can generate natural-sounding text or speech. Scott said that “they’re making increasingly compelling GPU offerings that I think are going to become more and more important to the marketplace in the coming years.” Scott also said that he hopes to see more competition in the AI chip market, which would benefit both consumers and developers.

Conclusion

AMD is a chipmaker that is gaining momentum in the AI market, with its GPUs that are based on its RDNA 3 architecture. AMD’s stock price rose by 5% on Thursday, after Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott complimented its AI products at the Code conference on Wednesday. Microsoft and AMD have a long relationship that covers various domains, such as PCs, game consoles, and the cloud. AMD faces fierce competition from Nvidia, which is the leader in the AI chip market with its CUDA platform and its Ampere architecture.