AMD CEO Lisa Su took the stage for the first time at CES, giving details about AMD’s next-gen Ryzen CPU and its 7nm Vega GPU, now branded Radeon VII.
AMD used its first keynote address at CES to formally announce its next GPU, the Radeon VII, as well as its 3rd-generation Ryzen processor. Both will ship this year using the 7nm manufacturing process, giving AMD the technological edge over Nvidia and Intel in the war for ever-shrinking chips.
The keynote by AMD chief executive Lisa Su initially paled in terms of new announcements to Intel’s own 10nm keynote blitz a day before. But it ended strong, with the smaller, finer 7nm technology the focus of Su’s speech. It’s already been a busy show for AMD, which already announced new mobile chips and its first foray into Chromebooks earlier in the week.
Su reminded the audience of several AMD historical firsts, from the world’s first 64-bit processor to the integrated GPUs driving today’s game consoles. She then looked forward: over 34 billion connected devices will be available in 2025, generating 125 zettabytes of data.
“When we look as an industry, what really excites us how do we deliver all that computing performance is how we keep on that trendlines…it’s going to require new approaches, and new innovation and is a tremendous opportunity for all of us to deliver new leaders,” Su said.
The problem is that Moore’s Law, the axiom that transistors double over two years, has slowed, putting a premium on design. AMD is also prioritizing heterogenous computing, tasking the right processor to do the right job.
