Predicts more efficient ML architectures will drive adoption, see Instinct sales accelerate, shares dive

AMD's chief exec Lisa Su has predicted the chip designer's Instinct accelerators will drive tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue in coming years, despite DeepSeek-inspired speculation that next-gen AI models may not need the same level of compute infrastructure used to produce such tools today.

"Relative to DeepSeek, we think that innovation on the models and the algorithms is good for AI adoption," Su told analysts on Tuesday's Q4 earnings call, referring to the surprisingly capable made-in-China LLM family that was built on compute infrastructure so efficient – with fewer GPUs than one might expect – it has investors wondering if cutting-edge AI truly needs the billions in capex Silicon Valley demands.

Or in other words, do organizations really need to spend so much on the likes of AMD, buying its AI accelerators and swelling its revenues, if DeepSeek shows you can do more with less? Isn ...