Google to use AMD for AI, market value surge.

humbug · 17 Nov 2016 at 18:42

AMD: AI Efforts Get Boost From Google

Google will use AMD’s GPUs in its datacenters to accelerate its cloud offering integrated with deep learning.

MKM Partners believes that artificial intelligence (AI) is a potential $15 billion market opportunity by 2025. However, it also believes that AMD is too resource-constrained to fully address the opportunity.

Meanwhile, AMD has announced that it is entering the world of AI with Alphabet's Google will deploy AMD's GPUs in its datacenters. Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect of AMD's Radeon Technologies Group, said:

Google is building up its GPU-based infrastructure, and they want to ensure they offer AMD's architecture. Nobody has heard what AMD is doing in deep learning. This is a major first step for us.

More good news for AMD, Deep Learning / AI is a growing market and with Google using AMD's hardware its a strong foot in the door.

As a result AMD market value experienced another surge today.

Up to $8.50 now, its a good strong showing.

09/12/16

humbug said:
AMD share price just shot past $10 at the news that Intel will be using AMD's GPU IP for their next gen integrated graphics.

So much awesomeness right now....

02/02/17

humbug said:
Passed $12 now....

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/amd

Dave2150 · 17 Nov 2016 at 18:55

Fantastic news!

More R&D budget will let AMD compete with NVIDIA on an equal footing, or most likely surpass them.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Nov 2016 at 18:58

They also won a big contract from a huge Chinese cloud provider:

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18757632

Google is using the dual Fiji based AMD FirePro S9300 x2 and Alibaba the Tonga based FirePro S7150 x2.

Jono8 · 17 Nov 2016 at 19:19

Good news. We desperately need some competition. 1070 upwards shows a glimpse of a world without AMD and i don't like it (price wise).

maonayze · 17 Nov 2016 at 20:52

Nice pickup by AMD considering all of Nvidia's Deep Learning promotion etc...

Google are a nice BIG scalp to get.

Go Raja

humbug · 9 Dec 2016 at 11:48

AMD share price just shot past $10 at the news that Intel will be using AMD's GPU IP for their next gen integrated graphics.

So much awesomeness right now....

Erik13 · 9 Dec 2016 at 11:53

If Zen and Vega turn out to be success then i expect it to push 15

humbug · 9 Dec 2016 at 11:56

Erik13 said:
If Zen and Vega turn out to be success then i expect it to push 15

Yeah i'm thinking $13/$14/$15 by the end of next year, if AMD actually do well, properly well during next year..... AMD Shares could become supercharged.

HoneyBadger · 9 Dec 2016 at 11:57

I wonder if this big companies found the NVidia alternative too expensive? Might be a wake up call for NVidia!

(And this is coming from a Titan X owner!)

opethdisciple · 9 Dec 2016 at 12:03

I think this is mostly to do with the open source nature of AMD.

The good thing about AMD is companies that endorse more open source standards can use AMD as most of their technology is based on open source standards and technology.

That's not to say that Nvidia is any worse or that proprietary technology cant be better, it just a company like Google can take it's open source software and accelerate it on AMD's hardware (which has good support for open source standards) and even write their own code without the need to worry too much about any proprietary hardware issues.

Cost was obviously a factor as well.

Kelt · 9 Dec 2016 at 13:58

Good to see some positive news for AMD.

God help us if they ever went out of business.

Boomstick777 · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:06

Good to see AMD's restructuring paying off. Nvidia doing really well also, good news for us that like their GPU's for gaming xD.

Go AMD !!

beany_bot · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:13

Great news however I am a bit concerned that AMD sees all these successes outside of the dedicated consumer GPU market and just thinks to close that, less successful arm of the business.

Nealio · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:36

beany_bot said:
Great news however I am a bit concerned that AMD sees all these successes outside of the dedicated consumer GPU market and just thinks to close that, less successful arm of the business.

Consumer GPUs are still a pretty big business, AMD won't want to just leave that cash on the table. Especially if there's an R&D synergy between the 2 technology streams, which there clearly should be. Leverage your datacentre (or whatever) R&D into your GPUs and it's more profitable.

beany_bot · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:39

Nealio said:
Consumer GPUs are still a pretty big business, AMD won't want to just leave that cash on the table. Especially if there's an R&D synergy between the 2 technology streams, which there clearly should be. Leverage your datacentre (or whatever) R&D into your GPUs and it's more profitable.

true

shankly1985 · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:45

Doomed

ltron · 9 Dec 2016 at 14:54

I wish that I had bought some shares last year when the share price was well under $2. I was thinking of doing so, but I got scared as I thought the risk was too high. :mad:

beany_bot · 9 Dec 2016 at 15:03

ltron said:
I wish that I had bought some shares last year when the share price was well under $2. I was thinking of doing so, but I got scared as I thought the risk was too high.

I got some at $4 a share.
It's always a risk.

ltron · 9 Dec 2016 at 16:32

beany_bot said:
I got some at $4 a share.
It's always a risk.

True. Most people were so negative about AMD's chances, though. It seemed more likely they would go bust than get to this point. In the back of my mind I knew this surge was more than possible though and told people so, including a friend who is a fellow hardware enthusiast (not his fault of course, just a pity considering how it has turned out). Unfortunately, no-one would listen to me and they tried to dissuade me when I talked to them about it.

Live and learn I suppose.

Great news for AMD and those who've invested, I'm very pleased. Now I hope Zen and Vega are great successes and then we can have some real progress on the CPU and GPU fronts.

akarypid · 9 Dec 2016 at 19:18

AMD's cards have always been better suited to compute applications (e.g. that's why miners prefer them). Ironically NVidia has a near-monopoly there as well with CUDA.

The problem? As always with AMD, they didn't pay attention to the software side of things. They always thought that all they need is good hardware, and that software is not their problem. This came back to bite them in both DirectX 11 and now in this fast-growing sector of AI/machine-learning and cloud computation.

Fortunately it seems like they've learned their lesson and are improving both Crimson and are open sourcing a full compute suite via ROCm and GPUopen.

Basically, Bill Gates hit the nail on the hammer when he said it's all about developer mindshare and the rest follows... If AMD try to get that, they'll succeed in the cloud computing space.

EDIT: obligatory Ballmer video when talking about developer mindhare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY