AMD: the US chip designer behind Ryzen, EPYC and Instinct processors

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., known as AMD, is an American semiconductor company that designs processors and graphics chips for personal computers, game consoles, servers and artificial intelligence systems. It is based in Santa Clara, California, and its shares trade on Nasdaq under the symbol AMD.

The company matters now because it is one of the few suppliers of high-end AI accelerators and server processors. It reported record revenue of $34.6 billion for 2025, and in 2025 it agreed a large AI infrastructure collaboration with HUMAIN in Saudi Arabia.

Overview and Founding

AMD was founded in 1969 as a Silicon Valley start-up with a few dozen staff. It was incorporated in Delaware on May 1, 1969, and became a publicly listed company in 1972.

For much of its history AMD was known mainly as a maker of PC processors. Today it reports three main segments: Data Center, Client and Gaming, and Embedded, whose chips go into areas such as aerospace, cars, industrial machines, healthcare and communications networks.

Since October 2014 the company has been led by Lisa Su, who also became chair of the board in 2022.

Key Milestones

• 1969: AMD is incorporated in Delaware on May 1.
• 1972: The company becomes publicly held.
• 2014: Lisa Su is appointed president and chief executive on October 8.
• 2017: The first Ryzen processors based on the “Zen” design reach the market, and the EPYC server line launches on June 20.
• 2022: AMD completes its all-stock acquisition of Xilinx on February 14.
• 2025: AMD completes its purchase of ZT Systems on March 31.
• 2025: AMD and HUMAIN announce a collaboration of up to $10 billion on May 13.
• 2026: AMD reports record 2025 revenue of $34.6 billion on February 3.

What It Does

AMD designs its chips but uses outside foundries to make the silicon wafers for all of its products, with TSMC producing its most advanced processors and graphics chips. Most assembly and final testing is also done by third parties.

Its best-known product lines include Ryzen processors for desktop and laptop PCs, EPYC processors for servers, Radeon graphics cards, and Instinct accelerators for training and running AI models. AMD says its “Zen” processor design now sits inside every processor it sells.

Through the Xilinx deal it added FPGAs, adaptive systems-on-chip and AI engines, which are programmable chips used in areas such as telecoms, aerospace, cars and industrial equipment. AMD also offers ROCm, an open software platform for programming its accelerators. Its Data Center segment covers server processors, graphics chips, AI accelerators, DPUs and AI network cards.

The ZT Systems purchase brought in teams that design complete server racks for very large cloud providers. AMD said the deal would let it deliver end-to-end AI systems that combine its processors, graphics chips, networking silicon and software.

In the Kingdom, AMD and HUMAIN agreed in May 2025 to invest up to $10 billion to deploy 500 megawatts of AI computing capacity over five years, with HUMAIN handling data centres, power and fibre and AMD supplying its chips and software. The partners later formed a joint venture with Cisco, as reported by The Saudi Times in February 2026.

Like other chip stocks, AMD shares can react sharply to market worries about AI spending. On one October 2026 trading day AMD fell 8.1 percent while the Nasdaq lost 2.6 percent.

In Numbers

• Revenue: $34.6 billion in 2025, up 34 percent on 2024.
• Fourth-quarter revenue: a record $10.3 billion in the last quarter of 2025.
• Net income: $4.3 billion in 2025.
• Employees: about 31,000 as of December 27, 2025.
• International sales: 67 percent of revenue in 2025.
• Patents: about 12,600 issued patents worldwide as of December 27, 2025.

Leadership

AMD’s official leadership page lists Lisa Su as chair and chief executive officer. Jean Hu is executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, Mark Papermaster is executive vice president and chief technology officer, and Forrest Norrod is executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Solutions Business Group.