Despite concerns about excessive spending in the artificial intelligence sector, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has committed to a substantial investment of $60 billion (€51 billion) in AI chips from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The five-year agreement also entails Meta acquiring a 10% stake in AMD.
The deal follows a similar pact between AMD and OpenAI last year, which boosted AMD’s share price and strengthened confidence in its chip technology.
“AMD will supply Meta with 6GW of chips over a five-year period, starting with 1GW of its upcoming MI450 hardware in the second half of this year,” said Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. In addition to AMD’s leading graphics processing units (GPUs), Meta will also purchase central processing units (CPUs), including a custom-designed variant optimised for Meta’s specific needs.
Su stressed that the custom CPU prioritises high performance while minimising energy consumption.
“Despite this substantial investment in AMD chips, Meta plans to continue buying chips from other suppliers and developing its own processors,” said Santosh Janardhan, head of infrastructure at Meta. Reports indicate that Meta is in talks with Google about using its tensor processing units (TPUs) for AI workloads.
Janardhan explained that Meta’s extensive data centre and infrastructure expansion makes collaboration with multiple chip suppliers necessary. In essence, all the major chip manufacturers play a role in Meta’s ambitious AI efforts.
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