AMD CEO Lisa Su discusses AI in Taipei talk

AMD 執行長蘇姿丰在台北演講中探討人工智慧

She holds fireside chat on topic 'AMD's Transformation to AI Leader'


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) arrived in Taipei to give a presentation at National Taiwan University on Tuesday.

Her hour-long fireside chat took place in a 500-seat auditorium, which was sold out minutes after registration opened. This led NTU to open an adjacent hall for students to view a live stream, also available on the internet.

The first question Su answered was how AMD evolved from a CPU-based company into a computing powerhouse. She said the company has always focused on “high-performance computing,” and this focus allowed AMD technology to touch billions of people every day through cloud computing centers, PCs, automotives, or industrial applications.

“For a technology company, the most important thing is you have to have a road map. Our focus is really on three things. The first is high-performance computing. The second is to have excellent partnerships. And the third piece is that the semiconductor industry is changing.”

Su referred to a new industry belief that Moore’s Law is slowing down, leading AMD to make big bets on chiplet technology as a key area going forward. She said this strategy has paid off, and “when you look at the top supercomputers in the world, we have five of the 10 super computers based upon AMD’s technology."

When asked about the most exciting frontiers of chip design, she said “holistic design” was the more appealing, especially as AI continues to develop. “You have to think about the algorithms and applications and then design your chips.”

Regarding the impact of China’s low-cost Deep Think AI technology, Su said that every week there is new technology and innovation. “When you look at what they did, it was quite clever. When you can find a way to make AI more accessible and cheaper, you will find more applications for AI“.

After the unveiling of Deep Think, Su was asked whether the US will still want to make large investments in AI. Su said the ecosystem for AI is quite broad, and some companies will continue to make large investments, as well as medium-scale and affordable investments.

Su was also asked how AMD differs from other tech companies such as Nvidia. “The most important thing that I can say about AI is that the market is huge. We expect that the market over the next four to five years will be around US$500 billion (NT$162 trillion), and in that type of market you need all different types of computing.”

“There is no one company that has all of the solutions. So our strategy, number one, is to have a very complete solution; this includes hardware, software, and systems. And the second piece is to have an open ecosystem.”

As for how Taiwan can compete in AI, Su said that the Taiwan ecosystem is very special. “When you look at the Taiwan ecosystem, you know that starting from the TSMC ecosystem, which really has built this incredible manufacturing capability, and then including all of the ODM and OEM ecosystems, manufacturing ecosystems, and design ecosystems.”

“The one thing that I would say is in this world today, the ecosystems are very interconnected, and from a US standpoint, we do rely on a lot of the Taiwan manufacturing ecosystem, and trying to build resilience into that ecosystem is important.“

Su said that she was born in Tainan, and her parents emigrated to the US. “When we went as a family, the key focus was education. When I attended MIT, I very much wanted to finish school and go to work. My parents said, ‘No, Lisa, you cannot do that.’ They strongly suggested I get a Ph.D.”

"My parents were right because what you get from graduate school are many things, like the confidence to solve future problems. Even though I was not happy with my parents, they were definitely right. It was my dream job to go from semiconductors to leading AMD.”

Su was also asked about her connection to Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) of Nvidia, as both are related. “I have tremendous respect for Jensen. But we run independent companies. As semiconductor companies, we do attend some of the same events and exchange some ideas."

After the talk, Su fielded questions from the media, such as government regulation of AI.

“From my standpoint, AI is the type of technology where we have to innovate and go as fast as possible and understand that there does have to be regulation but not too much regulation so that you slow down the progress. In general, that is my philosophy, and I think when you look across the world, you see that people are recognizing that.”

Su was also asked how Trump’s tariffs are impacting the AMD supply chain. “I think overall, we all see that it’s a very dynamic situation, the overall supply chain. I think that we are very lucky that we have a broad and very deep set of partnerships, so we believe we can work very closely with our partners to manage many of the supply chain issues.”