Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su recently testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee regarding the company’s performance and future prospects. This testimony occurred during a hearing titled “Winning the AI Race: Strengthening U.S. Capabilities in Computing and Innovation.” Though AMD reported revenues above expectations, its earnings missed the mark, illustrating a contradictory portrait of the semiconductor behemoth.
During her testimony, Su highlighted that seven of the top ten model builders and artificial intelligence companies utilize AMD’s Instinct chips. All of this points to the fact that the company is extremely well poised amidst the massive global shift towards AI. AMD’s latest financial results were sobering, especially in the context of their burgeoning AI business segment.
AMD shares fell nearly 3% in after hours trading after the chipmaker reported quarterly earnings that fell short of analysts’ predictions. Despite these challenges, the company was able to grow revenue from clients by a hot 57% to $2.5 billion. AMD’s data center segment brought in $3.2 billion in revenue, a 14% year-over-year growth.
To further expand its AI capabilities, the company recently unveiled new AI chips like the Instinct MI400, which are slated to hit the market next year. Su conveyed confidence in AMD’s competitive edge against rival Nvidia, stating that “Instinct MI350 was competitive with Nvidia’s GB200 chips for training and inference.”
The company’s AI business faced obstacles. Revenue in this segment has decreased from 2023 at this time. This decline was due primarily to U.S. export restrictions, which banned MI308 sales to China. She stated, “AI business revenue declined year over year as US export restrictions effectively eliminated MI308 sales to China, and we began transitioning to our next generation.” The effect of these restrictions was projected to take about $800 million in revenue out of AMD just in the June quarter.
Even with these issues, AMD still had tremendous momentum in its gaming segment as revenue surged 73% year-over-year to $1.1 billion, representing a record high. Much of this boom was propelled by new demand for so-called “application specific integrated circuits” or ASICS, which are used in game consoles and gaming GPUs.
For his part, Su sounded notes of optimism about what lies ahead. Cortez thinks that shipments should start again shortly, though, since waiving export restrictions has been mentioned by the Trump administration as a possibility. That should help ease some of the pressure on AMD’s bottom line that has marred recent quarters.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined Su during the Senate hearing, committing to using AMD’s latest GPUs for their operations. This collaboration has brought to light just how important AMD’s technology has become to this critical, high-growth industry.