AMD has laid out its aim to provide the best AI PC experience for users everywhere, taking a swipe at some of its biggest competitors.
As AI becomes a commonplace presence in our work and personal lives, the need for proper hardware to benefit from its advances has never been more important.
AI PCs are likely to be the main way many consumers will experience the technology first-hand, with platforms such as Microsoft’s Copilot+ bringing productivity and efficiency benefits to all.
Window of opportunity
In a hyper-competitive market, AMD is keen to stake its claim for leadership, with a key company spokesperson telling a media briefing attended by TechRadar Pro that only it was able to provide the full hardware experience.
“We’re probably the only company that has all three pieces,” declared Jack Huynh, SVP and GM, Computing and Graphics, at AMD, noting that of its rivals, Nvidia is yet to reveal serious challengers in the APU market, and Intel is in the same situation when it comes to data center GPUs.
“There’s a window of opportunity in the arms race, so we’re moving as fast as possible,” Huynh added, highlighting AMD’s range of new releases and announcements at Computex 2024, particularly its Ryzen AI 300 series, as proof of its desire.
“Part of our vision is if you have the same IP that powers the data center, the cloud and the edge, we can actually create engineering efficiency, but also better security, which is what enterprises care about.”
Huynh noted how AMD is putting particular focus on talking to software firms to find out their needs when it comes to AI PCs, naming the likes of Adobe, Zoom and Microsoft as key partners.
“Our goal is in the next three to five years, to aggressively catch up,” he said, “we’re over investing in software now.”
This includes a bold goal of creating a unified software architecture for NPUs, with Huynh explaining how AMD wants to make it easier for developers to build with an NPU, as it offers the best performance per watt.
“Our goal is to get that time to deployment to be as fast as it can be, make the best of both worlds,” he noted, “We want to make sure we’re not just building a solution to a problem – we really want to understand what developers want to do, what you want to enable.”
AI PC journey
Huynh admitted that AI PCs will require more education from OEMs and companies like AMD in order to appeal to the mass market – particularly to begin with, as customers are typically being asked to spend more money on a new device than they previously have before.
He noted how AMD isn’t rushing when it comes to AI PC development, as, “This will require massive education – but to me this is just the very beginning, it’s a journey, we’re excited about it…I think about it as, we’re rebirthing the PC, we’re going to sustain this AI leadership.”
“Launching a product when it’s ready is very important…I believe we have one shot with the end users to establish that the AI PC is an innovative product.”
“AI is moving ten times the speed of the internet…(it’s) the new electricity – it’s going to be everywhere and power everything, so it’s so important for us right now to be an AI-first company.”
