[The Exiled]

Intel’s manufacturing glitch opens door for AMD

Advanced Micro Devices’ battle with chip giant Intel has often seemed like a gnat fighting an elephant, with AMD struggling in recent years to gain even a tenth of the market for the chips that power PCs and data center servers. Now, though, AMD may have a shot at coming out with a faster, more powerful chip than Intel for the first time. It's a market opportunity worth around $50 billion. The data center market is particularly important because of the growth of new technologies like artificial intelligence–related applications, much of which is handled in the cloud. Companies that buy chips for data centers or PCs could gravitate to AMD chips as a result of Intel’s delay. Still, any fight between AMD and Intel is a David-and-Goliath struggle.

Intel is a giant, with $64 billion in revenue, roughly $10 billion in net income and a market capitalization of $260 billion. AMD, on the other hand, has revenue of a little above $5 billion, a market capitalization of $14.4 billion and a history of struggling to even turn a profit. Last month, at Intel's annual shareholder meeting, CEO Brian Krzanich said there was "absolutely not" a competitive threat posed by its manufacturing difficulties. “We think we have one of the best roadmaps that Intel’s had in its history moving forward,” he said. The manufacturing glitch is the latest in a series of challenges for Intel. It missed the mobile market and has struggled to diversify into areas like cybersecurity and wearables such as smart glasses. But it dominates the market for PC and data center server chips.

Mr. Norrod (who oversees AMD's data center business) played down the significance of the hiring. He also claimed that AMD’s graphic chip business is doing a little better since Mr. Koduri’s departure. Under Mr. Koduri, AMD changed product plans for new graphic chips several times. “We had some wastage on the GPU roadmap where he changed his mind,” he said. “I think that since we’ve really locked that down, we’re making a little bit more rapid progress.” Because of the time it takes to build a new chip, Mr. Norrod doesn’t expect Koduri and Keller to have any impact at Intel for at least another three years. He argues that gives AMD, for now, an historical advantage it’s never had before.

Izvor: [H]ard|OCP