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AMD partners with AI startups to enhance chip and software

design

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Cohere benefits from AMD's improved software, reducing

adaptation time

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OpenAI influenced AMD's MI450 chip design

By Max A. Cherney

SAN JOSE, June 13 (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) has

forged close ties to a batch of artificial intelligence startups

as part of the company's effort to bolster its software and

forge superior chip designs.

As AI companies seek alternatives to Nvidia's ( NVDA ) chips, AMD has

begun to expand its plans to build a viable competing line of

hardware, acquiring companies such as server maker ZT Systems in

its quest to achieve that goal.

But to build a successful line of chips also requires a

powerful set of software to efficiently run the programs built

by AI developers. AMD has acquired several small software

companies in recent weeks in a bid to boost its talent, and it

has been working to beef up its set of software, broadly known

as ROCm.

"This will be a very thoughtful, deliberate,

multi-generational journey for us," said Vamsi Boppana, senior

vice president of AI at AMD.

AMD has committed to improve its ROCm and other software,

which is a boon to customers such as AI enterprise startup

Cohere, as it results in speedy changes and the addition of new

features.

Cohere is focused on building AI models that are tailored

for large businesses versus the foundational AI models that

companies like OpenAI and others target.

AMD has made important strides in improving its software,

Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez said in an interview with Reuters.

Changing Cohere's software to run on AMD chips was a process

that previously took weeks and now happens in only "days," Gomez

said.

Gomez declined to disclose exactly how much of Cohere's

software relies on AMD chips but called it a "meaningful segment

of our compute base" around the world.

OPENAI INFLUENCE

OpenAI has had significant influence on the design of the

forthcoming MI450 series of AI chips, said Forrest Norrod, an

executive vice president at AMD.

AMD's MI400 series of chips will be the basis for a new

server called "Helios" that the company plans to release next

year. Nvidia ( NVDA ) too has engineered whole servers in part because AI

computations require hundreds or thousands of chips strung

together.

OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared on stage at AMD's Thursday

event in San Jose, and discussed the partnership between the two

companies in broad terms.

Norrod said that OpenAI's requests had a big influence on

how AMD designed the MI450 series memory architecture and how

the hardware can scale up to thousands of chips necessary to

build and run AI applications.

The ChatGPT creator also influenced what kinds of

mathematical operations the chips are optimized for.

"(OpenAI) has given us a lot of feedback that, I think,

heavily informed our design," Norrod said.