Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) (AMD) has acquired artificial intelligence startup Nod.ai in a move to enhance its software capabilities in response to Nvidia Corporation’s increasing stranglehold on the graphics processing sector.
AMD and Nvidia are the two largest designers of the microchips found in the GPUs that power gaming rigs and, increasingly, the data centres powering the AI revolution.
However, Nvidia’s vertically integrated strategy, combining a highly sophisticated software stack exclusively run on Nvidia GPUs, has steered the group into the newest trillion-dollar company in 2023.
Nvidia cemented its position as the preeminent supplier of microchips to the AI industry thanks to a tie-in with ChatGPT developer OpenAI.
In a Reuters interview, AMD president Victor Peng said the company is investing in a unified collection of software to power its diverse range of chips.
“We are executing to that strategy,” Peng stated. “And doing it through internal investment as well as external acquisitions.”
Integrating Nod-ai with AMD’s technology stack will allow developers to deploy AI models on AMD hardware more easily.
The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Though AMD is lagging behind Nvidia in the AI department, Microsoft’s chief technology officer Kevin Scott recently acknowledged AMD’s potential in the field.
“They’re making increasingly compelling GPU offerings that I think are going to become more and more important to the marketplace in the coming years,” said Scott.
Yet AMD’s market capitalisation, although an impressive $175.5 billion, does not come close to Nvidia’s towering trillion-dollar-plus valuation.