Overview

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company that designs high-performance CPUs, GPUs, adaptive SoCs and accelerators for consumer, enterprise and embedded markets. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, AMD operates as a fabless semiconductor designer and competes directly with firms such as Intel and NvIdia.

Key facts

  • Founded: 1969 (Jerry Sanders and co-founders)
  • Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
  • CEO / Chair: Dr. Lisa Su
  • Business model: Fabless semiconductor design (manufacturing outsourced)
  • Notable acquisition: Xilinx (completed Feb 2022)

Leadership

Dr. Lisa Su (Chair & CEO) has led AMD through multi-year product, financial and market-share gains. Under her tenure AMD has launched successive CPU architectures (Zen family), expanded its data-center and AI product lines, and completed strategic acquisitions.

Product lines

  • EPYC — server processors (data-center, cloud and enterprise workloads)

  • Ryzen — consumer and mobile CPUs (desktops, laptops)

  • Radeon — discrete GPUs for gaming and some professional graphics workloads

  • Instinct — data-center AI/accelerator GPUs (MI series)

  • Adaptive/FPGAs (from the Xilinx acquisition) — programmable logic and adaptive compute

Market position & competition

  • Server CPUs: AMD has materially grown EPYC share versus Intel; estimates in mid-2025 put AMD at roughly mid-30s percent share in many server CPU metrics while Intel still retains the largest share.
  • GPUs & AI accelerators: AMD is a major competitor to NvIdia in GPUs. The AI accelerator market is rapidly evolving; AMD is expanding its Instinct line and planning Helios-class platforms for future datacenter AI deployments.
  • Consoles & gaming: AMD supplies custom SoCs for major consoles and remains a significant player in gaming CPUs/GPUs through Radeon and semi-custom designs, though gaming revenue can be cyclical around console lifecycles.

Strategic moves & acquisitions

  • Xilinx (2022): Acquired the FPGA leader Xilinx to add adaptive computing and expand into networking, communications and embedded markets.

  • AI software & infrastructure deals: AMD has pursued acquisitions and partnerships to strengthen AI software and system capabilities (examples reported in 2023–2024 include Nod.ai and other AI infrastructure investments).

  • Partnerships: AMD has announced and pursued strategic partnerships across cloud providers, hyperscalers and AI labs as it competes for datacenter AI deployments.

Recent & notable developments (2024–2025)

  • Continued rollouts of Zen 4/Zen 5 architectures in client and server CPUs.
  • Expansion of Instinct GPU family and roadmap for MI350/MI400 / Helios-class datacenter platforms.
  • Strategic deals and reported discussions with large AI customers and cloud providers.

References & further reading