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0:01There's no shortage of drama
when it comes to chip making. Even when you're winning the game changes.
0:07Do you ever feel like
you're running a race that just never stops? Oh, of course, of course. Absolutely.
0:13That's exactly what we're doing. I'm running like a different
company every few years. Hmm. Like the industry is changing that fast.
0:21The technology that we're
building is changing that fast. It's a fantastic race though, because each race is different.
0:26It's like a different movie, but it's a, a more
exciting movie each time. Today is a really big Lisa Su, the CEO
0:33of advanced micro devices likes
to be in the driver's seat. Born in Taiwan and raised
in New York with a passion
0:39for electrical engineering
and three degrees from MIT. Su worked at a couple of
big name chip makers before.
0:45Clinching a big victory
transforming AMD from a failing chip company into a
formidable force in gaming
0:51PCs and the cloud. She's quick to remind us that her secret weapon is an
obsession with the tech itself.
0:58Her no-nonsense
approach probably helps too. I've heard you don't take [bleep] from
anyone. Who's told you that?
1:06Seriously. I've heard
your, your toughest nails and I'm sure you have to be. Well,
1:11I like to win if that's okay. I would tell people I
was doing semiconductors
1:17and they would say what? Like, what's that? Like you build chips. Like what does that mean? People
didn't even understand like
1:24where technology really fit
in the grand scheme of things. Like now everybody knows, like
everybody talks about chips,
1:34Chip rule just
about everything around us. It's one of the most ubiquitous and consequential
technologies in the world.
1:41They power your smartphones,
cars, planes, power grids, the internet, the global economy,
1:47and even Formula One races where AMD sponsored the
Mercedes AMG Petronas team.
1:52And I think the
adaptability that you need to have in this sport is similar to a high performance real world company.
1:59The technology develops and
that's why it's so much fun. And what I love is the
stopwatch never lies.
2:05Chips are at the heart
of a global technology race and a battle for supremacy between China and the United States.
2:12So for the AMD CEO, the heat is on. She's in the middle of a race of her own, pulling off the impossible
2:18by surpassing archrival intel only to find that AI has completely changed the game,
2:23and now Nvidia is in the lead. I'm in Austin to see how Su
competes on and off the track,
2:29and if she can pull off
the unthinkable once again.
2:45Hello. Hello. Thank you
so much for doing this. Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming. So the first thing we did
when we got here is we went
2:53to your lab and your
engineers made us this chip.
3:00Wow. It's our own chip. The circuit on a circuit.
3:06This is our epic with the
circuit with Emily Chang. You've been CEO of AMD for 10 years.
3:11You've been working in the
chip industry for decades. But I wanna go back to a moment.
3:17When did you first hear that
you were gonna be CEO of AMD? It's a phone call you get
from your chairman of the board
3:25and he said, Lisa, can you talk? I'm like, sure. And he goes, it's time.
3:31And I'm like, time for what? He, he said, you know, the,
the board has, you know,
3:37made a decision and they would like you to be the next CEO. I said, okay.
3:44Well how did that feel?
Because it was a tough time. AMD was trading at $2 a share. One guy said it was deader than dead.
3:52What made you think you
could prove them wrong? The opportunity to be CEO of AMD was truly
like a dream come true.
3:58It's like, wow, okay. Like you, you think that
maybe you can do this and here you're gonna have
the opportunity to lead a, a,
4:07a major semiconductor
company on yes, you're right. It wasn't the best time,
4:12but I was pretty confident that we had the right pieces.
4:18They just needed to be put
together in the right way. AMD was founded in 1969
4:24by executives from
Fairchild Semiconductor, the famed company that
pioneered integrated circuits.
4:30Founder Jerry Sanders
was famous for saying, "Real men have fabs." Those are the plants
that manufacture chips.
4:37AMD started off as a
memory chipmaker like Intel and followed its larger
rival into new markets,
4:42but always struggled to achieve
the scale and performance Intel enjoyed. With a
cash crisis on its hands,
4:49AMD had to spin off those fabs and outsource its manufacturing. A sign
4:54of the uphill battle Su was facing, few believed AMD would make it, until she started making her moves.
5:00Now AMD stock is trading in a totally different stratosphere. Was there a moment along the way
5:07where you really saw a MD turn a corner? Probably the most
important moment for us
5:14was the launch of our new
architecture, the launch of Zen. You'll hear us talk about Zen a lot.
5:21Zen was our clean sheet
design to, you know, really design the next generation
5:28architecture in in CPUs for
the next, you know, decade
5:34AMD's main competition in
designing the best chips comes from two players, Nvidia in
graphics processing units or GPUs
5:41and Intel in central
processing units or CPUs. A CPU is the Swiss army
knife of semiconductors.
5:49They run operating systems
and programs, retrieve files and are generally the heart of a computer.
5:56A GPU or graphics chip
is much more specialized. They were designed to do multiple small
6:01calculations simultaneously. That parallel processing
makes them ideal for AI.
6:07We've told you our brand, the
new Zen architecture put AMD back on top and gave it
a range of chips capable
6:13of taking market share from Intel. You proved the naysayers wrong, that has to feel like vindication.
6:20Like do you ever just
like shut the door and go Yes. All by yourself?
6:27I don't know that I do that Emily. You know,those first few years were
more about just stabilizing the
6:34company and getting
ourselves on a good roadmap. And then we went through a
period of just tremendous growth
6:40around the portfolio. And now we're in the AI world. This current AI wave is moving so fast.
6:46How would you describe the pace right now? I truly believe AI is
the most transformational
6:52technology that I've seen in my career. And you know, we've seen all kinds of technology transitions. We've seen the rise of the
internet, we've seen, you know,
7:00the rise of the PCs,
mobile phones, cloud, all of these things were
all really mega trends.
7:08I think AI actually surpasses all of that. The rate and pace of
change in the industry,
7:14it's like faster than
anything we've ever seen. It's like we've made more
progress in the last 18 months than certainly the last 10 plus years.
7:21Now to win and keep winning,
you have to keep at the pace and keep bringing the heat over decades. How do you keep up your
own pace? Personally,
7:28I really enjoy just the
learning part of technology and the learning part of
being in, in our industry.
7:36Like, I spend a lot of
time with our engineers as they're developing products. And in every one of those
conversations I learned something
7:44and I learned something that
I can then say, Hey, you know, maybe we should do this just
a little bit differently.
7:53I come here for two reasons. I come when there are good things 'cause I, you know,
wanna be able to see some
8:00of the new technology myself. And then I come when there's a problem and when there's a problem,
I'm here to cheer them up. I
8:06Oh, to cheer them up. Oh
yes. Not to crack the whip. No. 'cause
At the end of the day, like, These guys love what they
Do.
8:11I've heard you make some
late night trips to the lab. I've done late nights,
I've done weekends.
8:17I don't wanna surprise them. It'd be too much for a
surprise. I can't just pop in. Might have a heart attack. That's right.
8:24I'm gonna show you some
of our latest tech. This is a gaming chip. We're pretty sure when it
launches it will be the
8:31fastest gaming chip in the world. What makes you think this is the fastest gaming chip in the world?
8:36It has a special technology,
which we call X3D, which puts, you know,
8:41memory really stacked
on top of the processor. So it's phenomenal for gaming The fastest gaming chip in the world.
8:48Does it look like it? Who would know? She would. We talked a lot about AI. Yeah.
8:54You, you need to at
least see the technology. I wanna see it. So let's
take a look here. Bring it on. Yeah. So what we have here is our,
9:03these are our AI chips. This is MI300. Engineering sample
9:08it says, and this is how it
looks actually on the board.
9:14It's heavy, the weight of ai. So this is, this is
currently in production. One of the things that, that
we run is, you know, sort
9:21of a lot of the AI workloads, the stuff that's running on Microsoft
Azure, you know, GPT GPT-4o
9:27Those things. They're
running on MI 300. Meta's LLAMA. Did I hear that you refer
9:33to these machines as your children? They're all my kids, yes. So if, if you were to actually
step into my library at home,
9:42you would see chips galore. 'cause every time I launch
a chip, like I, I save that
9:47as a, as a souvenir. And there's no favorite, although
I have to say this, this,
9:53I mean, this, this one is,
has, has gone a long way. So Shh. Don't say it too loudly.
10:00In this new race to deliver
the best chips for AI Su is focused on catching
up to Nvidia. A niche player
10:06that got its start in the
nineties making chips for computer graphics and video games, Nvidia realized early on that
its GPUs could be pivotal
10:14for AI and suddenly blew
past its competitors. When chat GPT came on the scene,
10:20NVIDIA's chips are the hot
commodity for Meta, Google and Amazon sending its
stock through the roof
10:26and besting Apple as the most
valuable company in the world. Nvidia is seen as the dominant
force in AI right now.
10:34And AMD is widely considered
the next best option. Is that good enough for you? Do you like being seen as the underdog?
10:42I wouldn't call it a
like, or, or dislike. What I would say is, you
know, AMD has had a history
10:49of doing amazing things and from, from that standpoint, we've always been in this place where we,
10:56we haven't necessarily had the
same amount of people that, you know, other larger companies have,
11:01but we've certainly punched well above our weight in certain
terms of technology capability. In terms of impact on the industry.
11:08This is the most complex,
highest performance computer. People are kind of obsessed
with the fact that you
11:13and Jensen are distant cousins. I know that you are competitors, but do you ever trade notes?
11:20Well, first of all, Jensen is brilliant. So I fully admire him for that.
11:25We were really distant, so
we didn't grow up together. You know, we, we actually
met at an industry event,
11:32so it wasn't until we were
well into our careers. So no family dinners? No, just to, just to put the rumor
11:38to rest. No family dinners. And It's an interesting coincidence. So many of your customers
are building their own chips,
11:44hyperscalers like Apple
and Meta and Google and Microsoft and
Amazon. Is that a threat?
11:50This is a huge market, Emily. There's like more than enough
chips for everybody to build.
11:55Mm. And the beauty of this is
everyone's recognized that, you know, chips are so important.
12:01Yes. So it's natural that they're gonna have
their own capability. Has the shakeup of a very
established industry surprised even you?
12:10It has a little bit, I have
to say, when you think about this conversation about the
resiliency of the world,
12:17depending on, you know,
semiconductor diversification, like those kinds of things, you know, those are are big things.
12:23They're beyond an industry.
They're, they're really sort of underpinning sort of the
global economy, you know,
12:28underpinning national security. It is something that for someone who's been in semiconductors
12:34for a long time, it's different. This is a very complex business with trillions of moving parts.
12:40One wrong bet or manufacturing
delay can cost billions and give competitors the
chance to jump ahead.
12:46Just ask Intel. It's just been a stunning fall from grace. This company used to be the
world's dominant chipmaker
12:54Over the years, they have fallen
away from being the leader. Their technology is not advanced. We saw the worst share
decline in about 40
13:01years for the company. They gave a very grim growth forecast. They also made or announced
plans to slash 15,000 jobs.
13:09They've always been
on the brink and they always seem to find a way. But we've never seen anything like this Back in San Francisco.
13:14I wanted to get perspective
on the changing dynamics of the chip industry from
Bloomberg reporter Ian King,
13:20who knows the stakes
better than anyone else. Explain the pace of the chip industry.
13:26Does it feel like a race to you? It's absolutely a race.
It's a murderous race. You fall behind, you are in big trouble.
13:33For decades, Intel had more
resources than anybody else, more revenue, and was way ahead. It set the agenda, takes five years off,
13:41basically made some bad decisions that it shouldn't have made. And now we're in a position where they might never catch up again.
13:47Right. The train does
not wait for anybody. What do you think Lisa's legacy will be? It's already cast in, in stone, right?
13:54They're going to build a statue of her because she took a company that was and also ran that used to get laughed at.
14:01Almost made a difference, right? A-M-D, and made it a significant provider
14:06of cutting edge technology. A serious company, one
that people believe in and trust, and she did that.
14:12Are we trading the dominance
of one company for another? The direction for the industry was set by Intel for decades.
14:17Right now, the whole AI
thing is built on Nvidia. Nvidia is coming out with
software, new chips, new services,
14:24faster than anybody else's. And everybody's just following them because that's the easy thing to do. At a, at a certain point
they become utterly pervasive
14:31and then the cost of replacing
them becomes difficult. So what does AMD
have to do to catch up?
14:37Depends what you mean by catch up, right? This, this industry tends to
have a very strong player, number one in each market.
14:44A good number two, and then a number three where you're like, why are you bothering.
At the moment, AMD is a
14:49solid number two. And doing well, they
have billions of dollars of revenue from this AI accelerator
14:54that they didn't have last year. So they're doing way better. But compared to the tens
of billions of dollars
15:00that Jenssen's bringing in at Nvidia, they're a long way behind. Let's talk a little
bit about the geography.
15:05How did the chip industry become
so concentrated in Taiwan? The industry is
concentrated in South Korea,
15:11in memory in Taiwan with
logic manufacturing. Intel used to sneer at them
15:16and say outsourced
manufacturing in semiconductors doesn't make sense. It's, it's not practical. It'll
never be as good as we are.
15:23Guess what? It's way better
than they are right now. It's enabled it Nvidia, it's enabled a MD and a host of other companies
that could never compete
15:31with Intel to do more than compete to win because it's providing the best
manufacturing in the world.
15:36However, this has created
a very geopolitically difficult situation. Taiwan is at its closest point,
15:43about a hundred miles away from
the coast of mainland China. As you know, China regards
Taiwan as a rogue province
15:49and part of its sovereign territory. That tension has existed. The US has been the guarantee
of, of Taiwanese safety
15:57with chips becoming more and
more important geopolitically. And we've seen that tension arise. Obviously there's concern
16:03that maybe China takes a
strategic look at Taiwan in terms of taking hold of it.
16:11Will silicon ever move back to Silicon Valley in a meaningful way? Like will chip manufacturing
come back to the US?
16:18I think we will see chip
manufacturing back in the US. I think we should recognize though
16:24that the semiconductor world is global. Like that ship has sailed. Was moving manufacturing
abroad a mistake?
16:34In hindsight, I think we
would've been happier if there was more manufacturing in the US. American manufacturing,
16:39the backbone of our economy
began to get hollowed out. Companies moved jobs
overseas. Today we're down
16:45to producing only around 10%
of the world's chips, despite
leading the world in research and design of new chip technologies.
16:52The US government is
considering capping exports of your chips and Nvidia's to other countries. Is
that the right call?
16:59The technology that
we're building is some of the most powerful chips in the world. And so we totally get that
17:04there's a national security element of it. We want there to be as open a market as possible while still
taking into account, you know,
17:10the national security interests. And it's a give and take. Do you
worry about the future of Taiwan?
17:16We all worry about ensuring that there is resiliency
in the supply chain.
17:21So put China and Taiwan aside. A few years ago we had, you
know, a big storm in Texas and like things were
out for like a few days.
17:29You know, that's geographic concentration that you wanna make sure
that there's resiliency for. You were born in Taiwan
and I know you go back
17:36to your hometown often. What's your favorite
thing to do when you're not visiting fabs?
17:41You know, I really do love Taiwan and I was born in Tainan so it was a small city in the
southern part of, of Taiwan.
17:50Actually. I was just
there not too long ago to, to visit family. And we have a big family, like, you know,
17:55my dad had like nine siblings. Wow. And my mom had like six,
so it was like a big family.
18:01So there are lots and lots of
cousins and aunts and uncles and all of that. And so yeah, it's just fun to,
to kind of be a part of that.
18:07Everyone's curious about the habits of super successful leaders. What are your go-tos? Like
what's in your daily routine?
18:13Well, this morning I
was up at 6:30 boxing. So that's in the daily routine.
18:20You need to have energy when
you start a morning. Heck yeah. And uh, a day is either, you know,
18:27here in the office or it's on the road. But when I'm here in Austin,
it's, it's, it's a good day.
18:32When the pace is relentless and
perfect execution is the only option. Sometimes you need to
take your foot off the gas
18:38and watch another team
compete for some inspiration. Formula 1 is the most
technologically advanced motor
18:44motorsport in the world. And AMD's chips give
the Mercedes F1 team an edge in the competition.
18:50Su is giving us a front
row seat to the action because, well, she likes fast cars too.
18:55We have a lot of Porsches in our family. That's our, that's our thing. One of the things is all
19:01of my cars have like
our product names on it. So I have a, a Ryzen and I have an Epic
19:06and I have a Radeon and
I have like an Epic two. That's amazing. Yes. See, I
heard there's an AMD color way.
19:15There is a color palette. The epic color is graphite blue metallic. And it's, it's a gorgeous color.
19:20And that's a color of your Porsche. It is. That's epic. When you
look at a car, an F1 car,
19:26does it look like a
computer on wheels to you? It absolutely does. And, and that it's actually
even more than that. I mean the, the car itself is just one
19:33piece of the equation, right? What's so amazing about the
entire Formula 1 technology is
19:39it's the car, but then it's
also just everything behind it that helps get the car ready.
19:45I mean, it's filled
with chips and sensors. I love the fact that, you know, you know, Toto actually keeps us informed
about how things are going
19:51and you know, it's great that
our technology helps them make some of those adjustments. At Formula 1,
19:57along with Star Driver Lewis
Hamilton, Mercedes racing boss. Total Wolf is an institution.
20:02He works hand in hand
with companies like AMD and a team of elite engineers
to push the limits of speed and performance for their cars.
20:09There's a million different
things that go into winning. How do you figure out the one
thing that nobody else knows? There is no such thing as one thing.
20:16I agree with you.
It's true. Absolutely. - Chip industry
or motor racing is just good engineering, empowerment of
people, development of people
20:24and, and giving them the tools to come up with good ideas and make
them make them reality.
20:31Speaking of the technology, how do you think AI is
gonna change racing? Engineers would always say
the weakness of the car sits
20:38between the steering wheel and the engine. Because it's irrational,
it has good and bad days.
20:44This human interaction
is difficult to replicate because it's an infinite amount of data.
20:51We generator driver has so
many sensors, we have hundreds of millions, if not billions
of sensors in our body
20:57that make the individuals
still much superior to the machine and the racing car. So we are in our infant
shoes in terms of AI
21:05and application Formula 1. Lewis how are you? It's so great
21:11to see you. Lovely to see you. What's your vibe today? What
do you think? How you feeling? Practice one was horrendous,
it's like the worst practice.
21:19I had a big spin. This is
the circuit when all the high speed, it's all about confidence. You have to get building blocks.
21:24So when you have a spin like that, it knocks you down the ladder
that you don't have a lot of time to get back there. So in this session, I just
have to like, go for it,
21:31hope that the car is there. And you're so involved on
the engineering side of things, like what drives you to do that?
21:36That's the fun part. Yeah. That's where you tap into
your creativity, right? I'm not a designer in, in terms of car,
21:43but I love trying to understand it and trying to see if I
can pull something up. The designs they have already done.
21:48Yeah. By the way, Lewis is
a gamer too, so he uses some of our gaming technology. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I only ever play Call of
Duty, but I've been looking
21:56recently, like what else is there? I know there's a lot that I'm missing. The thing that there's
such nice parallel
22:01with Formula 1 is we
learn in every race, it's the same thing in, in our
world in technology, right? We learn with every customer environment
22:08that we put our technology
in with the, the entire, you know, F1 season, like every, every race you learn
something and you adjust.
22:16While it's still early days
in the next great technology race, Su has shown she can master a pivot and deliver results.
22:22Something none of her
predecessors could at a company that many had written off. And typical of Su, she
skips the victory lap
22:29and is laser focused on
the next step forward. What else do you wanna
accomplish in the world, aside from making AMD succeed?
22:36I'm passionate about the
next generation of leadership. So I, you know, I was
very lucky in my career.
22:43People paid attention and, and, you know, gave me opportunities. I believe that's part of my job as well.
22:49There should be more women in technology. I think there are more,
like, we've made a lot of progress over the last number
22:55of years, but there's a lot more to do. So what's the lesson in there? Have confidence in yourself,
right? Take a chance.
23:01Like, don't worry about failure. Like sit in those meeting rooms
and say what's on your mind
23:07and volunteer. I was given this advice
when I was a young engineer. It was, you know, run towards problems.
23:15And what does that mean? It means, look, we're all gonna work
really hard every day. You might as well work
really hard on something
23:22that is really important. And so look for that
hardest problem to solve and volunteer to help
23:27because you're, you're gonna
learn a lot in the process. You're gonna distinguish yourself
23:32and what's the worst
thing that's gonna happen? Like you make a mistake, okay, fine, get up the next day is another day,
23:38and you'll have learned
so much in that process.