Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Open full sized image

Once known for PC chips, Advanced Micro Devices has risen to prominence in data center and AI computing.

© JHVEPhoto/stock.adobe.com

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American semiconductor designer and global supplier of computing and graphics technologies used in data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), personal computers, and gaming devices. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, AMD is a fabless chipmaker, outsourcing production of its chips to manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Its products include EPYC processors for servers, Ryzen chips for personal computers, Radeon graphics cards, and Instinct accelerators for AI and high-performance computing.

AMD was cofounded in 1969 by Walter Jeremiah “Jerry” Sanders, a former executive at Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, and seven colleagues. The company released its first product in 1970 and went public two years later. In the mid-1970s, the company began producing computer chips. Starting out as a second-source manufacturer of computer chips, the company emphasized quality and grew steadily.

In 1982, the company began supplying second-source chips for Intel Corporation, which made the microprocessor used in IBM personal computers (PCs). The agreement with Intel ended in 1986.

In 1991, AMD released the Am386 microprocessor family, a reverse engineered chip that was compatible with Intel’s next-generation 32-bit 386 microprocessor. The release led to a protracted legal dispute with Intel that ended in 1994, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in AMD’s favor. That same year, Compaq Computer Corporation contracted with AMD to produce Intel-compatible chips for its computers. In 1996, AMD acquired NexGen, a microprocessor start-up whose designs helped AMD move beyond making Intel-compatible chips.

At the start of the 21st century, AMD strengthened its position as Intel’s main rival with the Athlon processor, the first chip to reach a 1-gigahertz clock speed. The success of Athlon marked the peak of Jerry Sanders’s long tenure as chief executive officer; he retired in 2002 and was succeeded by Hector Ruiz, whom he had recruited two years earlier.

Under Ruiz, AMD continued to innovate, releasing the Opteron server chip in 2003 and acquiring ATI Technologies in 2006 to add graphics expertise. But product delays and heavy spending eroded AMD’s competitiveness, and the company recorded a string of losses. In July 2008, after seven consecutive losing quarters, Ruiz was replaced by Dirk Meyer, a veteran chip designer. Ruiz remained as executive chair.

In 2009, AMD spun off its manufacturing operations into a new company called GlobalFoundries, backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, while retaining its design and engineering teams. Ruiz left AMD to become chair of GlobalFoundries, completing the company’s transition to a fabless business model—designing chips internally but outsourcing production to foundries. The move allowed AMD to cut costs and focus on processor design.

Also in 2009, after years of complaints by AMD, the European Commission fined Intel €1.06 billion ($1.45 billion) for practices that violated the European Union’s antitrust laws. The ruling was widely viewed as a vindication for AMD, which had long argued that Intel’s dominance had stifled competition in the personal-computer processor market.

Meyer was ousted in 2011 and succeeded by Rory Read, a former Lenovo executive, who stabilized the company and expanded its semi-custom chip business, winning major contracts for the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One gaming consoles. In 2014, AMD was reorganized into two divisions: computing and graphics, which made processors for PCs, and enterprise, embedded, and semi-custom, which produced specialized chips for game consoles and other devices.

After Read stepped down as CEO in October 2014, Lisa Su—then AMD’s chief operating officer—was appointed president and CEO, taking charge as the company faced mounting losses and declining market share. She refocused AMD on high-performance computing, energy-efficient chip design, and reliable product delivery, reshaping the company’s strategy and public image.

Under her leadership, AMD introduced its Ryzen and EPYC processor families, which gained broad adoption among cloud providers, business clients, and PC manufacturers. The success of these products helped AMD regain market share from Intel and restore profitability, sending its stock price to record highs by the early 2020s.

In 2022, AMD acquired Xilinx, a maker of programmable chips used in devices that require flexibility and real-time processing, such as cars, telecommunications equipment, and industrial systems. The $49 billion deal, the largest in AMD’s history, brought in technology that allows chips to be reconfigured after manufacturing, giving customers more control over performance and power use. It also expanded AMD’s presence in areas such as automotive electronics, communications, and data center infrastructure, extending its reach beyond traditional central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processors.

By the mid-2020s, as demand for artificial intelligence grew rapidly, AMD spent heavily to develop high-performance graphics processors and specialized chips for AI training and use in data centers. Its Instinct line of accelerators—chips designed to perform complex calculations faster than conventional processors—has been adopted by major cloud providers and research organizations for running large AI models, giving AMD a foothold in a market long dominated by NVIDIA (NVDA).

In October 2025, AMD signed a chip-supply agreement with OpenAI, the company best known for developing the ChatGPT chatbot. Under the deal, AMD is to supply chips for OpenAI’s expanding network of data centers, which run the large computer systems needed to train and operate its AI models.

The agreement gave OpenAI access to as much as six gigawatts of computing capacity, with the first phase scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026. It also allowed OpenAI to acquire up to a 10% stake in AMD, depending on how much of the computing capacity is built. Industry observers viewed the partnership as a move by OpenAI to reduce its reliance on NVIDIA hardware and as evidence of AMD’s growing presence in the AI-chip market.

That same month, AMD entered into a $1 billion agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to supply chips for federal high-performance computing projects, furthering its role in government-funded AI and research initiatives.

By the mid-2020s, AMD had become a major player in data center and AI computing while remaining a leading supplier of processors for personal computers and gaming devices. The company focuses on designing flexible chips that power everything from laptops to large-scale AI systems.