Su or Huang? Who did it better?
19th December 2023
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world:
The titans of tech include someone you probably don’t know
Sexified Disney
The Bean Doctor
If that’s enough to get the stock price 50xing, read on…
AI Collision 💥 Huang, Pichai, Nadella – no thanks, I’ll take Su
Last week, I wrote about the rise of AMD as a legitimate competitor to Nvidia.
This, of course, has been a competitive comparison for decades. Even spanning back to before AMD existed as we know it today, and when ATI was the graphics processing unit developer that eventually became a part of the AMD family.
But 90’s graphic card debates aside, AMD has emerged as one of the most direct competitors to the unfathomable rise of Nvidia over the last two years.
AMD has surpassed the giants of tech like Intel, Cisco, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments in terms of market cap and, arguably, in terms of tech development as well.
In fact, before Nvidia jumped on the stock price rocket ship in 2022, it looked like AMD might have had them licked in terms of tech development and possibly even gone on to be the bigger semiconductor giant of the two.
The AI boom and Nvidia’s AI chips saw them streak ahead, but maybe that tide is turning, as we postulated last week.
For all the plaudits that Nvidia does get, and rightfully so, a lot of that attention is focused on Nvidia’s CEO and founder, Jensen Huang.
But what of AMD? In its own right, it is a phenomenal story too and a meteoric rise. But if I asked you who is the CEO of AMD, would you know? Or would you perhaps assume that, over time, AMD has gone through several CEOs all contributing to its rise?
Or would you perhaps be a little surprised to know that for the last nine years, it’s been one, solid consistent CEO who has helped drive AMD’s stock price around 50-times higher since she started in the top job?
Dr Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, is up there as one of the most influential CEOs of our time. She doesn’t get the same coverage or plaudits as perhaps Huang at Nvidia, or the likes of Pichai at Google, Nadella at Microsoft or Cook at Apple, but she is equally as important to the world in which we live today – just doing things a little more under the radar.
But who is she? Where did she come from and how did she help turn AMD into a legitimate tech giant?
Lisa Su's story begins with a young girl fascinated by how things work. As a child, she would take apart her brother's remote-control cars and put them back together, a first glimpse into her innate engineering talent. This curiosity followed her into her teenage years, where she owned her first computer, an Apple II, in junior high school, sparking a lifelong passion for technology.
She ended up at the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, where she graduated in 1986. Su's pursuit of knowledge then took her to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Initially torn between electrical engineering and computer science, she chose electrical engineering, considering it be the more challenging path.
During her undergraduate years, Su engaged in semiconductor research, manufacturing test silicon wafers, which solidified her interest in this field. Su's commitment to her field culminated in a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT in 1994, where her research focused on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, a pioneering approach at the time.
It is fair to say that her entire educational progression always had her destined for where she ended up.
Her professional journey started at Texas Instruments in 1994 and soon moved to IBM in 1995. At IBM, she played a critical role in semiconductor innovation, particularly in developing copper connections for semiconductor chips. This advancement significantly improved chip performance and set new industry standards.
After IBM, Su honed her leadership skills at Freescale Semiconductor, where she served in various executive roles, including as senior vice president and general manager. In these roles, Su was responsible for global strategy, marketing, and engineering, further broadening her experience in the technology sector.
She then found her way into AMD in 2012, initially in the role of chief operating officer (COO), where she played a pivotal role in turning the company into a more publicly aware, “household” name. Just two years in, she was appointed president and CEO of AMD on October 8, 2014.
Since taking the helm, Su has been instrumental in AMD's resurgence and transformation. Under her leadership, AMD has been one of the best-performing large-cap stocks in the market.
As noted earlier, others like Satya Nadella at Microsoft get plaudits for their impact on the company’s stock price. Nadella, for example, joined Microsoft in February 2014, and its stock price is more than ten times higher in the nine years since.
But under Su, AMD is more than 50 times higher in value. That is deservedly worth some greater recognition in our view.
Su's tenure at AMD has been marked by the development and launch of industry-leading technologies and products, particularly in the PC, data centre, and gaming markets. Her strategic focus on innovation and growth has not only revived AMD but also redefined its role in the competitive technology sector.
AMD’s ascension is in part due to Su’s leadership helping AMD to launch ground-breaking products like the Ryzen 7000X3D and Ryzen 8000 Series, asserting AMD's dominance over rivals like Intel in certain segments.
While Nvidia under CEO Jensen Huang has gained significant attention for its growth in graphics processing and AI, Su's work at AMD is no less remarkable. She has successfully challenged the dominance of companies like Intel and Qualcomm, revitalising AMD's competitiveness in the central processing unit market. Next up is Nvidia – a target worth aiming for.
Will AMD get there? Who knows, but when we look back at some of the most influential and important people in tech over the last decade, there are few at the level of Dr Lisa Su.
AI gone wild 🤪
It’s called Digi.ai and it is an AI “relationship” app. Over the weekend, it has taken social media by storm.
How best to explain it… 🤔
The app is an AI-based boyfriend or girlfriend where you can level up the relationship as you talk to them more, progressively unlocking more intimate conversation.
But it’s not just audio or written relationships... it’s visual too.
And the best and perhaps only way to describe that is to say it’s “sexified” Disney.
What do I mean by that? I mean this.
Look, to most people, this is weird. It also fits into our “AI gone wild” category too.
But it is also just an example of how social norms change over time. Things that are different to what you might know or be used to are hard to get your head around.
This is no expectation.
There’s an argument that people who end up using AI relationship companions like this are going to grow in size, which will eventually lead to fewer people having human relationships.
And there’s maybe something in that.
But also, there’s a good argument that people with AI girlfriends probably never would have had real-life ones anyway, so it’s actually a net positive on the balance of things.
Still, expect to see more of these things popping up as AI gets better at having real conversations, even if the “sexified Disney” avatars are clearly not.
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) up 17%
Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) up 13%
Lantern Pharma (NASDAQ:LTRN) up 11%
Bust 📉
Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) down 28%
Appen (ASX:APX) down 12%
Veritone Inc (NASDAQ:VER) down 7%
From the hive mind 🧠
We wrote about the idea of a cognitive AI powered by human brain cells. That does seem like science fiction, but there’s more and more research into it, and it looks pretty wild.
Things that AI is good at: writing high school papers, doing pictures and spotting whales. That’s right, spotting whales.
There’s been some coverage in recent weeks of the use of AI in political campaigns. But this is the first time I’ve seen it used for a campaign by someone who’s in jail.
Artificial Pollteligence 🗳️
Last week we asked: Will 2024 be a major market boom, bigger than what we’ve seen in 2023?
The results are in and the winner is…
Yes!
That’s a great outcome and very much in line with what we expect to see in 2024. We think the market has warmed itself up sufficiently in 2023, but the real big action, as capital starts to flow freely again, will come in 2024!
Strap in for the ride. It’s going to be a big one!
Here’s the final vote tally too…
Weirdest AI image of the day
Mr Bean as The Doctor – r/weirddalle
ChatGPT’s random quote of the day
“Artificial Intelligence is the art of making machines that have the ability to think, learn, and create; it's like planting the seeds of knowledge and watching them grow into forests of endless possibilities” – Anonymous
Thanks for reading see you soon, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
