- On Tuesday, AMD announced that it’s introducing two new AI-optimized processors for laptops and desktops
- Much to the benefit of AMD, the AI PC industry is expected to grow, increasing the demand for its processors
- The announcement resulted in a 2% increase in AMD’s share prices
On Tuesday, AMD announced that it’s planning to expand its AI PC line by introducing new AI-optimized processors. At a time when the competition between AMD, Intel, and Nvidia is extremely fierce, this move is expected to give AMD an upper hand.
Designed with advanced 4-nanometer technology, the two new processors are called the Ryzen Pro 8040 series processors (for laptops) and the Ryzen Pro 8000 series processors (for desktops). These are expected to cost somewhere between $200 to $300, based on their abilities.
We don’t know a lot about the chips but back in January when the company first announced the Ryzen Pro 8000 series chips, they were said to deliver “immense power and dominant performance for intensive workloads including gaming and content creation.”
In a briefing last week, the company said that the updated version of Ryzen 7 PRO, 5 PRO, and 3 PRO will be added to the 8000 series. Out of these three, the larger 8-core Ryzen 7 PRO and one variant of the Ryzen 5 PRO will also feature dedicated NPUs (neural processing units).
There’s no set release date but in a press release, AMD stated that these processors will be powering the newer models of HP and Lenovo from the second quarter of this year.
As a result of this announcement, AMD’s shares went up by more than 2%, reaching $163.54 around 1:36 p.m. ET. So far this year, its shares have already gained 10%.
Why Is AMD Bringing These Changes?
The ultimate goal of AMD is to drive productivity by making AI proficient in 4 areas:
- Automating repetitive tasks such as translation, video transcription, and summarizing a text.these
- System protection through features like automatic threat detection, diagnosis and quickly fixing the issue.
- System maintenance through automated predictions with the help of AI tools can warn you about device failure and notice changes in performance early on.
- NPU integration to help creators with text-to-image generation, video editing, and optimization.
What Other Chip Companies Are Doing?
AMD isn’t the only one making major moves in the industry. Last year in December, Intel launched Core Ultra chips at its “AI Everywhere” event. These chips were designed to offer unbelievable power efficiency, stunning graphics, world-class computing, and the best AI PC experience for mobile devices.
Similarly, Nvidia also introduced new GPUs this January that will help run genAI apps on PCs. As per reports, these GPUs are expected to support systems from Dell, Acer, and Lenovo.
The AI PC industry in general is reaching an all-time high. An estimate from U.S. consulting firm Gartner suggests that out of the PCs shipped this year, 22% will be QAI PCs. AMD president Victor Peng believes that AI PCs will be the biggest highlight this year.
This is good news. After the pandemic, the entire PC market was hit and a lot of companies saw a steep rise in sales. But experts believe AI PCs will pave the way for a recovery and as that happens, it will also give the chip industry a boost.
But the increase in demand will also increase the competition between these top 3 chip makers. It will be interesting to see how they make their products stand out especially because both AMD and Nvidia outsource their work to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) – the company that produces 90% of the advanced chips in the world.
