It’s clear AMD needs to catch up in the AI space: Even shipping an estimated 224,000 GPUs this year has yet to be enough to keep up with demand from major customers like Microsoft and Meta. Meanwhile, NVIDIA continues to dominate the market.
AMD intends to lay off 4 per cent of its workforce worldwide as part of its strategic shift towards AI. The firm confirmed the redundancies, saying they had become necessary to capitalise on emerging growth opportunities in AI.
According to a report from TechCrunch, this represents about 1,000 jobs lost at the company, which had approximately 26,000 employees as of last year. This is after Intel, a legacy rival for AMD, was forced to cut 15,000 jobs earlier this year.
AMD is under increasing pressure to compete with its competitor, NVIDIA, in the AI chip market. “AMD explained to CRN that the company is realigning resources to target the biggest growth prospects,” the report said. The company was committed to treating the impacted employees with dignity and supporting them through the transition.
This news follows a mixed Q3 earnings report. While AMD enjoyed revenue and profit growth, there were also significant setbacks: The company’s gaming division suffered a dramatic 69 per cent decline in year-over-year performance, and guidance for the upcoming quarter fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
AMD struggles in the AI space, and it is evident. Shipping an estimated 224,000 GPUs this year has yet to be enough for giant clients like Microsoft and Meta. Meanwhile, the major chipmaker competitor has retained its stranglehold on the market because key AI training workloads favour its chips. AMD has argued that its technology is superior to AI inference, but it’s playing catch-up.
