AMD Inks Massive Meta AI Deal To Deploy 6 Gigawatts Of GPUs In Data Centers

AMD and Meta have struck a multi-year agreement that will see the former provide key hardware to the latter for a massive AI infrastructure that, among other things, will span multiple generations of Instinct GPUs starting with a custom GPU based on AMD's Instinct MI450 architecture in the second half of this year, to be built on Meta's rack-scale architecture announced at last year's Open Compute Project Global Summit.

"We’re excited to form a long-term partnership with AMD to deploy efficient inference compute and deliver personal superintelligence," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta. "This is an important step for Meta as we diversify our compute. I expect AMD to be an important partner for many years to come."

This is a huge win for AMD that amounts to the deployment of up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs. Shipments for the first gigawatt deployment will commence later this year and will include both MI450-based GPUs and AMD's 6th Gen EPYC CPUs codenamed Venice.

"We are proud to expand our strategic partnership with Meta as they push the boundaries of AI at unprecedented scale," said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO, AMD. "This multi-year, multi-generation collaboration across Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs, and rack-scale AI systems aligns our roadmaps to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient infrastructure optimized for Meta’s workloads, accelerating one of the industry’s largest AI deployments and placing AMD at the center of the global AI buildout."

While AMD's Instinct GPUs serve as the headliner in this multi-year deal, the CPU side should not be overlooked. AMD and Meta are effectively expanding their EPYC processor partnership with this agreement. In its announcement, AMD notes that CPUs are a "strategic pillar of the AI compute stack" and play a critical role as AI infrastructure grows in scale and complexity. As such, Meta becomes a lead customer for 6th Gen EPYC chips.

For AMD, this deal has the potential to provide a significant boost in revenue. Notably, AMD is coming off a record quarter in which it reported $10.3 billion in fourth quarter earnings, over half of which ($5.4 billion) came from its Data Center division. And for the full year, AMD's Data Center revenue grew 32% to $16.6 billion.

AMD said it issued Meta performance-based warranty for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock as part of the deal. The stock is structured to vest at specific milestones related to its Instinct GPU shipments, starting with the first 1-gigawatt of shipments.

"We expect this partnership to drive substantial multi-year revenue growth and be accretive to our non-GAAP earnings per share, marking another significant step forward in delivering on our ambitious long-term financial model"” said Jean Hu, EVP, CFO and treasurer, AMD. "The performance-based structure also tightly aligns AMD and Meta around execution and long-term value creation."

For Meta, this deal is equal parts about scaling its AI infrastructures and diversifying its partnerships and technology stacks.

"We’re combining hardware sourced from a range of partners with our own rapidly advancing Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) silicon program," Meta says.

From Meta's vantage point, the expectation is that this chip deal with AMD will enable it to "advance and innovate at an unmatched pace" as big tech increasingly competes for leadership in AI.