AMD may develop AI GPU products exclusively for the Chinese market

AMD has just unveiled its financial report for the second quarter of 2023, achieving results that have surpassed market expectations. In the subsequent earnings call, Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, not only confirmed the upcoming refresh of Radeon gaming graphics cards but also underscored the significance of their data center product line designed to accelerate Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads. Earlier still, Dr. Su had suggested that AI presents enormous growth opportunities, forecasting exponential growth in AI over the next decade.

Within a single quarter, AMD’s AI business revenues have seen an over sevenfold increase, a remarkable achievement amidst the prevailing market downturn. Concurrently, this success has imposed greater pressures on AMD, necessitating the prompt development of suitable chips and overcoming hurdles in mass production and sales to meet the escalating performance demands of a growing customer base. It’s worth noting that NVIDIA, a competitor, has seen its AI GPU flourish in the wind of AI, becoming a major highlight in the current semiconductor market and enabling NVIDIA’s revenue to grow against the odds.

Dr. Su reiterated the importance of the Chinese market to AMD and its place in their investment portfolio, an aspect they also consider when contemplating the sales market for their Instinct series products. AMD plans to follow in the footsteps of NVIDIA and Intel by circumventing relevant export restrictions through customized products, seeking opportunities to provide corresponding AI solutions to Chinese customers, and setting this as their future direction.

Previously, NVIDIA limited the connection speed of the NVLink interconnect bus to 400 GB/s and launched the A800 and H800 series computing cards, introducing special products for the Chinese market. Intel this year also adjusted its MAX series GPU product line, discontinuing the original MAX 1350 and introducing a new product named MAX 1450. By reducing I/O bandwidth to meet export control regulations, Intel caters to the needs of “diverse markets.”