Artificial Intelligence · Profile from AI Research Companion
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices)
The Santa Clara chip designer that spent forty years as Intel's second source and nearly went bankrupt in 2015, then under Lisa Su bet the company on one new CPU core (Zen) and one outside foundry (TSMC), took a large share of the server processor market from Intel, bought Xilinx and ZT Systems, and became the only merchant GPU maker with a credible challenge to Nvidia in AI data centres. AMD's revenue was ~$34.6bn in 2025 (+34%), with a record ~$16.6bn from data centres (company, February 2026). In October 2025 it gave OpenAI a warrant over up to 160m AMD shares in exchange for a 6-gigawatt GPU commitment, and in February 2026 it struck a near-identical deal with Meta. Its market value, under ~$2bn at the 2015–16 trough (reported, verify), passed $1tn for the first time on September 21, 2026 (reported).
At a glance
- Founded
- May 1, 1969, by Jerry Sanders and seven colleagues, most from Fairchild Semiconductor
- Headquarters
- Santa Clara, California
- Ownership / structure
- Public (Nasdaq: AMD) since 1972 (verify listing history). Widely held by index and active funds; no controlling holder. Mubadala of Abu Dhabi, once a large holder through the 2008–09 GlobalFoundries deal, sold down over the 2010s (reported). OpenAI and Meta each hold milestone warrants over up to 160m shares (2025, 2026)
- Leadership (2026)
- Lisa Su (chair and CEO since October 8, 2014); Jean Hu (CFO since 2022); Forrest Norrod (data-centre solutions); Vamsi Boppana (AI, ex-Xilinx); Mark Papermaster (CTO); Victor Peng (Xilinx CEO, later AMD president, retired 2024, verify)
- Products
- EPYC server CPUs; Instinct data-centre GPUs (MI300X/MI300A, MI325X, MI350/MI355X, MI400 series incl. MI450/MI455X); Helios rack-scale systems; ROCm software stack; Ryzen PC CPUs; Radeon GPUs; semi-custom chips for Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox; Xilinx FPGAs and adaptive SoCs (Versal); Pensando DPUs and networking (Pollara NICs)
- Scale
- 2025 revenue ~$34.6bn; data centre ~$16.6bn (+32%); client and gaming ~$14.6bn (+51%); embedded ~$3.5bn (−3%) (company, FY2025). Q2 2026 revenue ~$11.5bn (+50%), data centre ~$6.7bn (+107%); Q3 2026 guidance ~$13.0bn ± $0.3bn (company, August 2026)
- Revenue and profit
- 2025 GAAP gross margin ~50%, GAAP operating income ~$3.7bn, GAAP EPS $2.65; non-GAAP EPS $4.17. Results included ~$440m of net inventory and related charges for the MI308 China export control (company). Q2 2026 GAAP net income ~$2.3bn, non-GAAP gross margin ~56% (company)
- Capital / regulatory status
- Fabless since 2009: wafers from TSMC (leading edge) and GlobalFoundries (older nodes); packaging partly at TSMC (CoWoS) and assembly partners. Subject to US export controls on AI GPUs to China (MI308 licence requirement April 2025; 15% revenue-share arrangement August 2025; MI325X under the January 2026 H200-class rule)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Lisa Su's turnaround after the 2008–15 near-collapse (2014); Zen, EPYC and the TSMC bet (2017); the Xilinx acquisition (2020–22); MI300 and the AI GPU entry (2023); ZT Systems and the rack-scale shift (2024–25); the MI308 China export charge (2025); the OpenAI 6GW warrant deal (2025); MI450, Helios and the rack-scale push with OpenAI, Oracle and Meta (2026)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2014
Lisa Su Turnaround
Restructuring / pivot
2017
Zen EPYC and the TSMC Bet
Launch / partnership
2020
Xilinx Acquisition
Acquisition
2023
MI300 and the AI GPU Entry
Launch
2024
ZT Systems Acquisition
Acquisition (manufacturing arm later divested)
2025
MI308 China Export Charge
Regulatory action
2025
OpenAI 6GW Warrant Deal
Compute deal / partnership
2026
MI450 Helios and the Rack Scale Push
Launch / compute deal