AMD, the semiconductor heavyweight, has announced a $665 million cash acquisition deal of Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab. The acquisition will further drive AMD’s strategy to compete with rivals like NVIDIA offering all-encompassing AI solutions for hardware, software, and services. Silo AI has crafted innovative open-source large language models (LLMs), including Poro and Viking, and developed AI models for major businesses such as Philips, Allianz, and Unilever.
The acquisition is expected to give a significant lift to AMD’s AI chips and provide a comprehensive spectrum of AI solutions, including software models, chips and implementation services. It also allows AMD to increase competition with NVIDIA, which has seen a fourfold value increase in just over a year due to its sales of AI-oriented products in this booming market.
AMD has been consistently expanding its AI ecosystem over the past year; investing more than $125 million in several AI firms and undertaking strategic acquisitions. The acquisition of Silo AI represents AMD’s largest AI deal to date, bringing in a wealth of assets. Apart from its team and client base, Silo AI’s expertise in working with research institutions to fine-tune AI model training on high-powered supercomputers using AMD chips is an advantageous attribute.
Silo AI has a track record of training state-of-the-art, open-source European language models on LUMI, Europe’s fastest supercomputer, powered by over 12,000 AMD Instinct GPUs. The investment’s considerable size underscores the high value attached to the enterprise infrastructure and services market.
The demand for all-in-one platforms that simplify enterprise AI development is on the rise. NVIDIA is currently leading the market, but there is scope for others to gain ground. Should there be any vulnerability in NVIDIA’s position, AMD is ready to seize the opportunity.
Competition is expected to remain intense, with major tech companies ramping up their investment to gain share in this critical growth market. Nevertheless, AMD’s strong chip portfolio combined with AI software capabilities obtained through acquisitions positions them as an increasingly formidable player in the AI landscape. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2024.
