AMD: A Chipmaker’s Tale

by

Now, I reckon there’s a heap of folks runnin’ around chasin’ the newest shiny thing, and right now, that’s this here “artificial intelligence.” Seems every inventor and tinkerer’s got a notion of makin’ a machine that can think – or at least appear to. And while I’ve seen plenty of inventions promised to change the world (most of ’em just changed my pocketbook), this one’s got a bit of a different scent to it. And it seems Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 6.13%) is positionin’ itself to reap a considerable harvest from this new field.

The stock, it’s done climbed a good fifty percent in the last six months, which, in Wall Street terms, is akin to a jackrabbit on a hot stove. But hold your horses, friend, ’cause the real runnin’ hasn’t started yet. You see, this AI business is shiftin’. It’s no longer just about teachin’ these machines – what they call “trainin'” – but about gettin’ ’em to answer questions, conjure up pictures, and generally act like they know somethin’. That’s “inference,” and it demands a different sort of horsepower.

Now, these AI contraptions, they can be mighty thirsty for compute power, especially when they’re inferrin’. If a chip ain’t got enough memory to handle all that data flyin’ around, things get slow and expensive. But here’s where AMD, it appears, has played its cards right. They’ve designed these new EPYC processors – they call ’em Venice – and MI455 graphics units with twice the memory bandwidth, specifically for this here inference market. It’s like buildin’ a wider road for a growin’ traffic jam – a sensible notion, if you ask me.

Loading widget...

Folks are takin’ notice, too. Luma AI, they’re runnin’ most of their inference work on AMD chips, and they’re plannin’ to expand that partnership in ’26. And OpenAI, the folks behind that ChatGPT contraption – the one that writes essays and tells stories – they’re usin’ AMD’s MI455 GPUs in a big deployment startin’ later this year. Seems even the high-falutin’ Silicon Valley crowd recognizes a good chip when they see one.

Now, I ain’t one for predictin’ the future – it’s a fool’s errand, if you ask me – but the signs are pointin’ towards substantial growth for AMD in the next few years. Wall Street analysts, them optimists, are expectin’ earnings per share to jump a good sixty-five percent this year. Whether that comes to pass is another matter, of course. But it’s a sight more interestin’ than watchin’ paint dry, and that’s sayin’ somethin’. It just goes to show, sometimes the old-fashioned virtues – like buildin’ a solid product – still pay dividends, even in this age of artificial everything.

Read More

2026-02-01 00:32