Liquid AI, an AI startup co-founded by robotics luminary Daniela Rus, has raised $250 million in a Series A led by AMD. Per Bloomberg, the round values Liquid AI at over $2 billion. Liquid AI aims to build general-purpose AI systems powered by a relatively new type of AI model called a liquid neural network. Liquid […]
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One of the oldest maxims in hacking is that once an attacker has physical access to a device, it’s game over for its security. The basis is sound. It doesn’t matter how locked down a phone, computer, or other machine is; if someone intent on hacking it gains the ability to physically manipulate it, the chances of success are all but guaranteed.
In the age of cloud computing, this widely accepted principle is no longer universally true. Some of the world’s most sensitive information—health records, financial account information, sealed legal documents, and the like—now often resides on servers that receive day-to-day maintenance from unknown administrators working in cloud centers thousands of miles from the companies responsible for safeguarding it.
In response, chipmakers have begun baking protections into their silicon to provide assurances that even if a server has been physically tampered with or infected with malware, sensitive data funneled through virtual machines can’t be accessed without an encryption key that’s known only to the VM administrator. Under this scenario, admins inside the cloud provider, law enforcement agencies with a court warrant, and hackers who manage to compromise the server are out of luck.
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Bank of America downgraded AMD after a Business Insider report raised concerns about demand for the tech company's AI chips.
Analysts at BofA cut AMD shares to a "neutral," citing "higher competitive risk" in the AI market, according to an analyst note published on Monday.
BofA analysts also lowered their AMD GPU sales forecast for next year to $8 billion, from $8.9 billion, implying a roughly 4% market share.
AMD's stock dropped roughly 5.6% on Monday, after falling about 2% on Friday. Its shares are down about 5% so far this year.
The declines follow BI's report on Friday that said Amazon Web Services was "not yet" seeing strong enough customer demand to deploy AMD's AI chips through its cloud platform.
Bank of America cited this AWS customer-demand issue, alongside Nvidia's dominance and the growing preference for custom chips from Marvell and Broadcom, as factors limiting AMD's growth potential.
"Recently largest cloud customer Amazon strongly indicated its preference for alternative custom (Trainium/ MRVL) and NVDA products, but a lack of strong demand for AMD," the Bank of America note said, referring to AWS's in-house AI chip Trainium and its close partnerships with Marvell and Nvidia.
AWS's spokesperson said in an email to BI, "AWS and AMD work together closely, as we continue to make AWS the best place to run AMD silicon. Based on the success of AMD CPUs on AWS, we are actively looking at offering AMD's AI chips."
An AMD spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment on Monday.
AMD recently increased its GPU sales forecast, just a year after launching its line of AI chips. But its GPU market share is still far behind Nvidia's.
Bank of America said AMD could still succeed in the AI chip market, in part due to Nvidia's supply constraints and premium pricing, making it a strong alternative, especially for internal cloud workloads. It also said AMD is well positioned in the server chip market, as rival Intel continues to struggle.
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AMD CEO Lisa Su said in a recent interview that she never met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, her competitor and distant relative, until later in their careers.
"We were really distant, so we didn't grow up together," Su said in an interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang published Thursday. "We actually met at an industry event. So it wasn't until we were well into our careers."
Former journalist and genealogist Jean Wu said last year that Su and Huang, both Taiwanese chief executives of global chip powerhouses, are first cousins, once removed. Huang, 61, is the older cousin to Su, 55. Huang's mother is a sister to Su's grandfather, a condensed family tree Wu published on her Facebook account showed.
Su confirmed the familial relationship with her competitor in 2020, saying that the two are "distant relatives, so some complex second cousin type of thing."
An Nvidia spokesperson confirmed to CNN last year that Su is Huang's distant cousin through his mother's side.
An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment on this story, and an AMD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Huang and Su have eerily similar career paths but different upbringings.
Su was born in Tainan, whereas Huang was born in Taiwan's capital, Taipei.
The AMD CEO later moved to the US, where she grew up in New York and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Huang lived in Washington and Kentucky before settling in Oregon. He later attended Oregon State University.
Su said in the Bloomberg interview that she has a large family she visits when she travels back to Taiwan.
"My dad had like nine siblings, and my mom had like six, so it was like a big family," she said. "So there are lots and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles."
Despite their familial ties, Su and Huang never crossed paths at those family gatherings.
"No family dinners," she said. "It is an interesting coincidence."
Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services
Last year, Amazon Web Service said it was considering offering cloud access to AMD's latest AI chips.
18 months in, the cloud giant still hasn't made any public commitment to AMD's MI300 series.
One reason: low demand.
AWS is not seeing the type of huge customer demand that would lead to selling AMD's AI chips via its cloud service, according to Gadi Hutt, senior director for customer and product engineering at Amazon's chip unit, Annapurna Labs.
"We follow customer demand. If customers have strong indications that those are needed, then there's no reason not to deploy," Hutt told Business Insider at AWS's re:Invent conference this week.
AWS is "not yet" seeing that high demand for AMD's AI chips, he added.
AMD shares dropped roughly 2% after this story first ran.
AMD's line of AI chips has grown since its launch last year. The company recently increased its GPU sales forecast, citing robust demand. However, the chip company still is a long way behind market leader Nvidia.
AWS provides cloud access to other AI chips, such as Nvidia's GPUs. At re:Invent, AWS announced the launch of P6 servers, which come with Nvidia's latest Blackwell GPUs.
AWS and AMD are still close partners, according to Hutt. AWS offers cloud access to AMD's CPU server chips, and AMD's AI chip product line is "always under consideration," he added.
Hutt discussed other topics during the interview, including AWS's relationship with Nvidia, Anthropic, and Intel.
An AMD spokesperson declined to comment.
Do you work at Amazon? Got a tip?
Contact the reporter, Eugene Kim, via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email ([email protected]). Reach out using a nonwork device. Check out Business Insider's source guide for other tips on sharing information securely.
Editor's note: This story was first published on December 6, 2024, and was updated later that day to reflect developments in AMD's stock price.
