Lisa Su's AMD Challenges Nvidia in AI Chip Dominance
Under the dynamic leadership of CEO Lisa Su, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has not only reasserted itself as a formidable force in the semiconductor industry but is now aggressively challenging Nvidia’s dominant position in the burgeoning artificial intelligence market. Su, known for her relentless pace, has steered AMD through a remarkable decade-long turnaround, transforming a struggling company with a market capitalization of roughly $2 billion in 2014 into a nearly $300 billion powerhouse today.
AMD’s resurgence is deeply intertwined with the global race for AI supremacy. The company’s advanced chips are foundational to the artificial intelligence systems rapidly reshaping industries worldwide. This strategic importance places AMD squarely at the center of complex geopolitical currents, particularly the evolving US-China relationship. The Trump administration’s shifting stance on chip export controls, including a recent decree imposing a 15 percent cut on AMD and Nvidia chip sales to China, underscores the critical role semiconductors play in national security and economic interests. Su, who frequently engages with policymakers in Washington D.C., views export controls as “a fact of life,” acknowledging the critical nature of AMD’s products. She is a strong advocate for bringing chip manufacturing back to the United States, emphasizing its importance for national security and economic resilience, despite the higher costs involved.
Born in Taiwan in 1969 and raised in Queens, New York, Su’s journey to the helm of AMD followed an impressive academic and professional trajectory, culminating in a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from MIT and executive roles at industry giants like Texas Instruments and IBM. Since joining AMD in 2012 and becoming CEO in 2014, she has strategically pivoted the company towards the high-performance computing market. Her foresight in embracing chiplets—a modular approach to chip design—and launching the world’s first 7-nanometer data center GPUs have yielded significant dividends, doubling AMD’s data center revenue in just two years. The company has also forged pivotal partnerships with leading AI innovators, including OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Elon Musk’s ventures.
Despite these impressive strides, AMD remains a fraction of the size of its primary competitor, Nvidia, which boasts a staggering $4.4 trillion market capitalization. Comparisons are inevitable, intensified by the fact that Su and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang are distant cousins—a topic Su humorously admits she is often asked about, despite her preference for focusing on the technology. While AMD has claimed its newest AI chips can outperform Nvidia’s, Su emphasizes a long-term strategy centered on building deep trust with partners. She points to AMD’s success in becoming a strategic CPU partner for major tech companies and aims to replicate this position in the AI accelerator market, expressing patience rather than setting arbitrary timelines for surpassing competitors.
A key area of focus for AMD is its software ecosystem, ROCm, which serves as the programming toolkit for its hardware. While acknowledging that ROCm is newer and still maturing compared to Nvidia’s long-established CUDA, Su asserts that AMD is “running faster” to improve its offerings. The company is actively investing in hiring talent and acquiring companies like Nod.ai to enhance its software capabilities and address developer feedback, recognizing that a robust software layer is crucial for broader adoption.
Beyond market competition, Su holds a profound vision for AI’s societal impact. She believes in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) but dismisses doomsday predictions of AI surpassing human intellect. Instead, her focus is on leveraging AI to solve “really hard problems” that could accelerate human progress, such as dramatically reducing chip design cycles or revolutionizing healthcare. Her passion for healthcare is deeply personal, stemming from her mother’s illness and her observation of the healthcare system’s complexities. Su envisions a future where AI integrates vast amounts of data to transform healthcare from an “art” into a precise “science,” enabling better diagnoses and treatments. She sees technology as the bridge to connect disparate medical expertise, ultimately improving patient care.
Su’s leadership philosophy is rooted in pragmatism and an unwavering belief in technology’s positive potential. She seeks individuals driven by passion for their work, viewing mission alignment as more crucial than exorbitant compensation packages for attracting top talent. Describing herself as a “pragmatic supreme technology optimist,” Su is convinced that AMD’s products can make the world a better place. She acknowledges the “noise” of market dynamics and geopolitical pressures but remains focused on the daily, step-by-step process of learning, listening, adjusting, and applying those lessons to drive the future of technology.