CEO of the Year Lisa Su Talks Competition and Collaboration in the Semiconductor Industry

Lisa thank you so much for being here tonight with your husband we're honored to have you here as times 2024 CEO of the year I will start with an easy question president Trump takes office in a few weeks will the new Administration be good or bad for the chip industry why don't we go back to the Kon Clark like numbers you know I like that that was a very nice introduction um first of all um Sam Jess you know thank you uh so much this is such an honor uh to be here and such an

honor to be amongst this company you know um the truth is we all think about what might happen uh but the most important thing for um our business and probably most businesses is just having certainty on what's going to happen so uh you know since the um since the election I think all of us um in business have been you know thinking about uh you know just what the next four years projects and I think we are optimistic about you know business we're optimistic about the opportunities um obviously in the semiconductor world uh for us

in chips uh it's um we're a little bit of a sensitive topic in the um we'll get into that yes but but but overall I think um certainty is a good thing good um you have in the past called AI the most transformational technology you've seen in your career I'm curious for this crowd what do most people get wrong about AI well let me ask so how many people in the audience like use AI every day it's pretty good that's pretty that I think that is um the most amazing thing that's why I believe AI

is the most um important technology that I've certainly seen uh in my career and you know back to what you know people may not quite understand is two things one is we're at the very very very beginning of AI so whatever you think you're doing today that seems amazing it's going to be 10 times more amazing like even 12 months from now because we're at the very early part of uh the learning curve and because we're learning it's not always going to be right and so the fact that AI is not right today doesn't mean

that it's not the most important you know technology ever and um you know Sarah is sitting right here at our table you know the street always wants the answer today or tomorrow it might take a little bit longer than that but I think over the next this is a 5 to 10 year cycle uh that we're in and we're at the very beginning of the cycle and that's that's what's so you know exciting about it I'd love to get into some of the the geopolitical issues uh that you and your company sit across today amd's

most advanced chips are made outside the United States when will they be made here so you know I would um I would maybe even take a step back and say you know five years ago nobody thought about where trips were made right nobody thought about where do you get your next trip um and uh that is what has really changed for our industry is you know chips are now at the backbone of everything like everything you do whether um it's something in your business or something um in your home or you know something in your

community you know goes through like probably thousands of chips a day and that's what makes it uh so important and I I think the turning point was actually during the pandemic when people couldn't get enough chips like if you remember you know people were wondering like why were were uh why were the the the you know the cars um you know uh constrained because you didn't have enough chips why why couldn't you get your computers when you needed it and that's when it became important as to where you can actually manufacture chip so yes from

a a political standpoint geopolitical standpoint it wasn't that important five or 10 years ago so it wasn't something the United States focused on and um since then it's become super important it's become you know with the chips and everything else and actually um what that has done is it's put so much more investment um into this area over uh the last few years so you know I think it will take us probably um the next five plus years to rebuild Manufacturing in the United States but it's going and it's actually going faster than you know

some might have thought but to go back to my question will you be able to make your most advanced chips in the United States we will and that will be in five years I would say in the next next 3 to five years you'll start seeing uh the most advanced chips you move that forward three years I like that yes okay well in in Arizona right now I mean Arizona is like the the center of um some of the the most advanced chips in the in the country and we're getting our first chips um off

the line and they're looking quite good you talked about at the being at the beginning of this cycle there's some reports that AI is actually plateauing isn't that bad news for AMD I uh first of all I don't agree with them why not because uh again this is the the the view of whenever we see technology Cycles they're actually arcs so you know you get a new innovation and it takes you so far and then you need the next new innovation and it takes you the next um you know five plus years and then you

see the next and I I think we're we're just at the initial waves of AI so today um what people want is larger and larger computers like you talk about supercomputers uh we just had um every six months they talk about uh they rank actually the the fastest supercomputers and uh we just had a couple of supercomputers um that were just built uh we'll have a faster one like a year from now and The Innovation that happens when you have all of this engineering Talent come together uh there are lots of new ideas lots of

new algorithms out there and um probably what I find most exciting about AI is that you can think about AI solving a broad set of issues like you think think about chat GPT today you can ask it questions you can uh we're talking about some of the things that uh you might do uh with time you can see the ability to transfer lots of general information but there's also a really interesting part of AI that how you can go really deep and solve some of the world's hardest problems like this idea that you know you

can accelerate the rate and pace of medical Discovery like I'm really interested in how Ai and Healthcare come together because you know Healthcare is so personal to all of us right we all have um you know family you know friends that have been you know impacted by by various diseases if we can accelerate drug Discovery if we can accelerate finding um you know some of these uh the next wave I believe you can do that with the next set of AI so I I don't think we're anywhere near plateauing I think you might need to

do it a different way and we've always had this notion as as Engineers that um when you reach a roadblock you find your next set of ideas to go forward well speaking of doing it a different way AI requires a mass amount of energy um is it making our climate worse is it harming our planet I think we are um we are all in this place where um you know power is one of the the key things that we think about how do we get um enough energy for what we want to do uh you

do need a lot of energy to run these um you know massively power uh powerful systems um I think AI can also help us conserve actually energy in the sense that it'll help us solve problems in a different um in a different way so that you won't have to uh necessarily um take as long like one of the the most interesting parts of AI is it should be able to you know kind of help us get to the answer you know some problems that might have taken um months or even years uh to simulate like

if you think about some of the the latest discoveries latest drug discoveries and how long things take uh you can imagine a time when that might be done in days or um or weeks and so that's how you you see the trade-off between energy and um uh and uh you know more computing power China just opened an Anti-Trust investigation into Nvidia are you worried that a geopolitical fight between China and the US will harm your business so there's a lot of discussion about um you know the US and China and and what that means um

clearly chips have become something that are so important from a national security standpoint and uh you know we recognize that there are some chips for example that are so special um that we can't ship to China that we can't ship to uh certain um other restricted countries um I think balance is always important in these things look China's also an important market for us we think about you know China as there there are lots and lots of uses of semiconductors and we'd like to have balance in this um it's so important you know you know

we talked about the new administration at the at the top uh what's really important is for there to be a good dialogue between U you know sort of the public sector and the private sector I think there's a lot of Partnerships um that are necessary that's true in most Industries um that's certainly very true in our industry and you know the key is that uh you know we want to have um the ability to protect National Security while also uh ensuring that um you know we have access to the chines market uh those who work

with you say you're a competitive person is that okay it it's fantastic um is there a day when AMD will be bigger than Nvidia you know competition is a good thing but one doesn't you know I I believe that there are multiple winners in uh in this market and the um the key for us is are we putting out new technology are we putting out technology that is changing the world are we helping solve some of the world's most important problems um those are really really important and at the end of the day you know

who's bigger who's smaller we'll see we'll see how that plays [Applause] out I think the challenge is on um speaking of competition uh there's an opening in the CEO's office at Intel who should take it you know Sam this was supposed to be a pleasant dinner wasn't it I mean like I think they're having a great time look um I have a lot of respect for Pat as a colleague so I've known him uh for many many years um you know there are uh it is hard to turn around a Semiconductor Company let let me

start with that so there are you know the thing about our um industry is that the decisions that you make today you actually won't see the fruits of that labor for like five years I mean that's that's the case it's like a fiveyear cycle it takes that long uh to design products to think about technology to think about markets uh going forward so um you know I would say it's a um it's a tough job it's a tough job has the Biden Administration encouraged you to emerge with Intel I think the uh the answer to

that question is no so I can answer that question the uh I think what we're all looking for is how do we make the US industry um stronger right you know the US leads in semiconductors today in semiconductor design uh we have been fortunate enough you know with Silicon Valley with all of the intellectual prop property uh that um that we've developed over the last many years uh for um just the innovation in our culture you know that's that goes with startups but also with larger uh more advanced companies um you know we've uh actually

acquired a number of companies over the last few years and it's added a lot to uh the equation um you know we're going to continue to do that I mean as an industry we're going to continue to push the envelope on technology and I you know I think that's something that we should be really proud of right we want to have the best chips we want to have the best computers we want to use those computers to solve the most difficult problems and um you know how we do that as an industry uh is partnering

like actually you know we are uh partnering um you know with Intel on a number of things we're partnering with u many of the companies in um in the semiconductor industry because there's no one company that has all of the good ideas it is a place where uh we absolutely have to come together and um there are places where we're going to compete and there are places where we're going to collaborate I think one of the um things that stands out in reading and listening to people talk about your journey as a leader is the

points in time where you decided not to do something when people were encouraging you to do that we often talk about leadership as what you do but it's just as frequently what you choose not to do is there a moment in time a decision that sticks out for you where you said everyone was telling you to go this way and you said no we have to go that way Pro probably the the most most um striking moment in time is you know whenever you think about technology people always are most interested in what you're doing

today right like what's the fat of today so when I first took over as CEO it was 2014 and 2015 time frame and The Fad was uh not fad is not the right word but the the the more interesting thing was um you know you're so excited about your next Apple iPhone right you're so excited about the next tablet that you're going to build that you're going to buy and people were asking my board was asking me Lisa why are we not like doing that like why are we not in phones why are we not

in tablets and the truth is you know those are fine businesses to be in but they're not AMD like AMD like we build big computers that's what we do we build big computers and many of you may not have heard about AMD certainly um you know 10 years ago maybe five years ago hopefully in the last year you've heard us um from time to time we build big computers and big computers were not sexy um 10 years ago but they're kind of sexy now right I mean you know you're talking to me about AI I'm

I'm lucky enough to sit amongst this audience and um I think that's the key the the key is to be very clear on what you want to be best at and it doesn't have to be the most popular thing but it has to be something that you know will make a difference well Lisa thank you for making superc computer sexy so glad to have you thank you [Applause]