Research Note: UALink Consortium Releases UALink 1.0

UALink

The UALink Consortium recently released its Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) 1.0 specification. This industry-backed standard challenges the dominance of NVIDIA’s proprietary NVLink/NVSwitch memory fabric with an open alternative for high-performance accelerator interconnect technology.

NAND Insider Newsletter: April 6 2025

Newspaper

Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, April 6, 2025.

NAND Insider Newsletter: February 17, 2025

Newsletter

Every week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, February 17, 2025.

CES 2025- Enterprise Tech Was There Too

CES 2025

Oh my, CES 2025 has taken me on one heck of a ride through the tech universe.  I am an enterprise IT guy but, I must admit, the non-IT tech at CES had me fully distracted. Automated lawnmowers, high tech indoor garden planters, and my favorite- an ultra-realistic flight simulator. Wowzers- really neat stuff.

CES 2025- Must See Tech

CES 2025

Can you believe it? The Consumer Electronics Show, aka CES, is just days away. I know, the timing is hard for all of us considering there hasn’t been much time to recover from our New Years festivities. No rest for the weary as we head out to Vegas for the big event.  

The show is always full of surprises, so stay tuned next week for lots of announcements to hit the wire. In the meantime, I have a few thoughts to share on what I will be looking for at the show.

Quick Take: AMD Data Center Group Earnings – Q3 2024

AMD Q3 2024 Earnings

AMD this week announced significant revenue and earnings growth in Q3 2024, driven primarily by exceptional performance in the Data Center segment. AMD’s Data Center revenue increased by 122% year-over-year, reaching a record $3.5 billion and marking over half of AMD’s total revenue this quarter. CEO Lisa Su, on the earnings call, attributed this growth to the success of the EPYC CPUs and MI300X GPUs, which experienced strong adoption across cloud, enterprise, and AI applications.

AMD MI300 Gains Momentum with New Vultr & Oracle Cloud Wins

AMD MI300x

The AMD MI300’s advanced architecture, featuring high memory capacity, low power consumption, and solid performance, is finding a home among cloud providers. While Microsoft Azure previously announced MI300-based instances, there are new announcements from specialty GPU cloud provider Vultr and the mainstream CSP Oracle Cloud Infrastructure of new integrations with AMD’s MI300 accelerator.

Research Note: AMD Acquires ZT Systems

Image of an AMD EPYC processor

AMD announced its strategic acquisition of ZT Systems, a specialty provider of AI and general-purpose compute infrastructure for major hyperscale companies, in a deal valued at $4.9 billion. The acquisition aligns with AMD’s AI strategy to enhance its capabilities in AI training and inferencing solutions for data centers.

Research Note: AMD Acquires Silo AI

Deal

AMD announced a definitive agreement to acquire Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, for approximately $665 million in an all-cash transaction. This acquisition aligns with AMD’s strategy to deliver end-to-end AI solutions based on open standards, enhancing its partnership with the global AI ecosystem.

Research Note: AMD Computex MI325x & MI350 Accelerator Announcements

AMD MI300x

At the 2024 Computex event in Taiwan, AMD CEO Lisa Su revealed details about AMD’s upcoming MI350 and MI325X accelerators, follow-ons to its current MI300x products, highlighting significant advancements in AI performance and memory capacity. The new products are positioned as key components in AMD’s strategy to lead the AI accelerator market.

Research Note: UALink Alliance & Accelerator Interconnect Specification

UALink

UALink is a new open standard designed to rival NVIDIA’s proprietary NVLink technology. It facilitates high-speed, direct GPU-to-GPU communication crucial for scaling out complex computational tasks across multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) or accelerators within servers or computing pods.

Microsoft Azure Cobalt 100 Arm-based VMs

Microsoft Azure Cobalt 100

At its 2024 Microsoft Build Event this week, Microsoft announced the preview of new Azure Virtual Machines powered by Microsoft’s previously announced in-house-design Arm-based processor, the Cobalt 100

Research Note: Lenovo’s AMD-based AI Portfolio Update

Lenovo logo

Lenovo announced a comprehensive set of AMD-based updates to its AI infrastructure portfolio, which include GPU-rich and thermal-efficient systems designed for compute-intensive workloads in various industries, including financial services and healthcare.

The new offerings, designed in partnership with AMD, address the growing demand for compute-intensive workloads across industries, providing the flexibility and scalability required for AI deployments.

Research Note: AMD Versal Edge Series Gen 2

AMD Versal

AMD expands its Versal portfolio with the introduction of its Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 and Versal Prime Series Gen 2 adaptive SoCs. These next-generation solutions cater to the increasing demands for AI-driven and classic embedded systems, providing a balanced mix of performance, power efficiency, functional safety, and security within a single chip.

Research Note: AMD’s CES Automotive Announcements

AMD Versal and Ryzen

At CES 2024, AMD made a significant announcement, unveiling its expanded venture into the automotive technology sector by introducing two products: the Versal™ AI Edge XA adaptive SoC and the Ryzen™ Embedded V2000A Series processor.

Research Note: AMD ROCm 6 Software Stack

AMD

At its AI-focused event on December 6, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduced the latest release of its ROCm software stack, marking a significant update in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI). The new release introduces enhancements that align closely with the company’s latest hardware, notably the MI300 series GPUs.

Research Note: Data Center Impact from AMD’s Q3 2023 Earnings

Image of an AMD EPYC processor

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) reported its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023. AMD showcased strong performance across its key segments during the quarter, including Data Center, Client, Gaming, and Embedded, with a focus on AI and high-performance computing solutions.
In this research note, we provide an overview of AMD’s key announcements and financial performance during the quarter, along with NAND Research’s analysis of what the results mean for AMD’s data center business.

Cloudian, AMD & Micron Boost Performance of Object Storage

Image of Cloudian logo

Cloudian, in partnership with AMD and Micron, recently demonstrated a significant breakthrough in object storage performance and energy efficiency, delivering extreme performance levels from Cloudian’s software-defined object storage solution.