AMD’s big deal is just their latest AI system

This column is a review of the week in AI. You can read the previous column here.

While we often focus on the machinations of companies like Microsoft, Google and Nvidia in the ever-expanding world of artificial intelligence, we sometimes forget about other major technology companies.

This is the case with AMD, which caught everyone’s attention this week when it announced it would buy server maker ZT Systems in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4.9 billion to compete with chip giant Nvidia in the AI ​​data center technology space.

While the deal didn’t come completely out of nowhere—AMD’s market capitalization is more than $250 billion and the company is the second-largest supplier of graphics processors needed for artificial intelligence—it underscores the company’s ambitions in an area in which the company has been an investor for some time.

According to Crunchbase, AMD itself has made four investments in the startup world in the past year alone that are heavily focused on AI:

• The company participated in AI infrastructure startup Fireworks AI’s $52 million Series B just last month, along with other AI companies such as Nvidia and Databricks Ventures.
• At the end of last year, AMD invested $56.5 million in Essential AI. The startup is trying to use AI to automate monotonous business tasks. Nvidia and Google also participated in the round.
• AMD co-led a $22 million Series B last October for Moreh, which develops an AI software tool that optimizes and builds AI models.
• Finally, last August, the company participated in the massive $235 million funding round for Hugging Face, which came at a $4.5 billion valuation. The New York-based startup enables companies to store and use AI software and hosts hundreds of thousands of open-source AI models that developers can use for AI applications. This massive round, led by Salesforce Ventures, saw the participation of the who’s who of the tech industry: Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Google and Amazon all participated.

AMD’s venture capital arm – AMD Ventures – has been equally busy in the AI ​​space, closing a number of mostly large deals this year alone, according to Crunchbase:

• In March, the company participated in the massive $175 million Series C for optical interconnectivity startup Celestial AI – whose photonic fabric platform helps separate compute power and storage, making large-scale AI processing faster and computing more energy efficient.
• In April, AMD Ventures participated in the seed and Series A financing of the enterprise AI platform Lamini. The startup enables companies to build their own AI safely and cost-effectively.
• It was also part of a huge collective that participated in Scale AI’s massive $1 billion round, which valued the data labeling and analytics startup at a staggering $13.8 billion in May. Other big-tech investors in that round included Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, Cisco Investments, Intel Capital and ServiceNow Ventures.
• And finally, just last month, the company participated in another mega deal: It participated in the $500 million Series D of the major language modeling company Cohere, which values ​​the startup at $5.5 billion. The round also included Cisco, Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures.

While it’s certainly no surprise that AMD is investing heavily in the field of generative AI, these massive deals, as well as the huge acquisition of ZT Systems, clearly show that the semiconductor giant is not going to be left behind when it comes to AI and, more importantly, the massive infrastructure needed to support it.

While Nvidia has certainly made the most headlines in the early battle for dominance in the AI ​​market, there are certainly a number of well-funded competitors that show no signs of dropping out of the AI ​​race.

Things we noticed and other things:

• Defense technology has been in the news a lot lately (like here and here). AI has certainly played a role in that, and this week we have another example. Defcon AI, which has developed an AI-powered decision tool for military logistics planning, has closed a $44 million seed funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command has already deployed the platform. The company claims that the Air Force can now set up airlift networks to transport personnel and equipment around the world during crises in under 10 minutes.

Further reading:

Illustration: Dom Guzman