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At an event Wednesday in California, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) unveiled its new accelerator chips that are said to run artificial intelligence (AI) software faster than rival products. The company introduced its MI300 chip, and CEO Su gave an astounding forecast for the size of the AI chip industry, saying it could climb to more than $400 billion in the next four years, more than double a projection the company gave in August.
AMD’s launch of its new MI300 chip now puts it against rival Nvidia for a showdown on who has the fastest AI accelerator chip. Such chips help develop AI models by blitzing them with data, a task they handle faster than traditional computer processors. AMD is confident that its MI300 chip lineup can win over some of the biggest names in technology, potentially diverting billions of dollars in spending toward the company.
AMD believes its new MI300 chip will give it an advantage in large language AI models used by AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which need considerable computer memory. The MI300 chip has over 150 billion transistors and 2.4 times as much memory as Nvidia’s H100 chip. It also has 1.6 as much memory bandwidth, further boosting performance. AMD’s CEO Su said the new MI300 chip is equal to Nvidia’s H100 in its ability to train AI software and much better at inference, the process of running that software once it’s ready for real-world applications.
Not to be left behind, Nvidia (NVDA) is developing its own next-generation accelerator chips. The H100 chip will be succeeded by the new H200 chip in the first half of next year. The H200 should match at least some of what AMD’s MI300 chip is offering. Nvidia is also expected to come out with a whole new architecture for the processor later in the year.
According to IDC, the entire chip industry in 2022 had $597 billion in sales. The prediction by AMD that the AI processor market alone will grow into a $400 billion market in four years shows the boundless optimism in the artificial intelligence industry. In August, AMD forecasted that the market for AI accelerators would only reach $150 billion by 2027. The main question is how long will AMD take to grab a more significant market share? AMD said its revenue from accelerators will climb to $2 billion in 2024, with analysts estimating AMD’s total sales will reach $26.5 billion. TD Cohen said AMD’s new MI300 chip is a “key milestone in the company’s AI journey, cementing its role as the leading genAI alternative.”
On the date of publication, Rich Asplund did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
