AMD accelerates the launch timeline for its next-generation data center GPU architecture.

During its Q4 2024 earnings call on Tuesday, AMD announced plans to accelerate the launch of its next major data center GPUs, the AMD Instinct MI350 series. CEO Lisa Su stated that AMD plans to sample the MI350 with "lead customers" in the current quarter and accelerate production shipments to "mid-year," moving up the timeline from the previously stated second half of 2025. "The bring-up has come up better than we expected, and there's very strong customer demand," Su said, "so we are actually going to pull that production ramp into the middle of the year, which improves our relative competitiveness."

While AMD's data center revenue remains substantially smaller than rival Nvidia's, the company has gained ground in the past year, acquiring and retaining major customers including Meta, Microsoft, and IBM. Sales of AMD Instinct chips reached over $5 billion in 2024, and the company expects its data center segment to grow "double digits" in 2025. Data center revenue accounted for approximately half of AMD's overall revenue, contributing $3.9 billion of the company's total $7.1 billion in revenue for 2024.

Su projected continued momentum in the AI compute market, stating "I believe that the demand for AI compute is strong. [MI350] will be a catalyst for the data center GPU business. We see [the data center] business growing to tens of billions as we go through the next couple of years." Investors responded positively to AMD's results, with the company's stock trading up 4.58% as of publish time.