Lisa Su of AMD recently celebrated a decade as CEO, a remarkable journey that has transformed the company from a challenging position into one of the most influential players in the AI landscape.
10 years ago I had the honor of a lifetime to be named @AMD CEO. It’s been an incredible journey with so many proud moments. Today I want to thank the global @AMD team for all you do. As amazing as the last 10 years have been, the best is yet to come. 🥰 pic.twitter.com/WuQRt3xlX3
— Lisa Su (@LisaSu) October 8, 2024
When Lisa Su first joined AMD, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, having laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce, while its stock price had plummeted to just USD 2.
Su’s achievements at AMD are numerous, particularly her revamp of the product portfolio. The reforms she implemented as CEO significantly shaped the company’s future success.
Notably, as reported by CNN, when Su first took the position as CEO of AMD, she decided not to pursue technology for mobile phones or Internet of Things sensors, recognizing that while these areas are promising, they are not AMD’s core competencies.
Instead, AMD opted to invest heavily in high-performance computing architecture—a move that may have seemed risky at the time—focusing on powerful computer processors and graphics chips for gaming, artificial intelligence, supercomputing, and other advanced technologies, as noted by CNN.
Su’s effort paid off a few years later.
AMD’s Zen CPU architecture generated remarkable revenue, according to a report from TechNews. The launch of the new computing architecture “Zen” in 2017 marked a pivotal moment in Su’s career at AMD.
According to a report in Fortune, just before production, a design defect was discovered in the “Zeppelin,” AMD’s first Zen-based product, posing a risk of delivery delays. If the issue cannot be resolved immediately, it will be another heavy blow for AMD, adding to the company’s existing challenges.
Su’s decisive approach to overcoming obstacles has been essential to AMD’s success. While on a business trip in India, Su immediately initiated chip testing upon hearing the news. Upon her return to the U.S., she went directly to the Austin lab to motivate the team, declaring, “Failure is not an option.” The team ultimately resolved the crisis and successfully gained market recognition in 2017.
AMD is actively transforming its market strategy to better integrate the demand from the AI market. According to a report from Wccftech, the company has announced the merging of its data center and consumer GPU lines into a unified “UDNA” series. As for AMD’s AI chip development roadmap for the next year, the “Advancing AI” event in this October will showcase the next-generation Instinct MI325X AI chip.
(Photo Credit: AMD)