AMD launches Helios system in direct challenge to Nvidia's AI dominance

AMD launched its Helios rackscale system at its Advancing AI event in San Francisco, directly challenging Nvidia's dominance in the AI data center market. CEO Lisa Su announced the platform is in full production, claiming the Helios rack provides 15% better compute performance than Nvidia's Vera Rubin and 30% more tokens per dollar. AMD also partnered with Cerebras for inferencing speeds and projected its total addressable market will reach $2 trillion by 2030.

AMD AMD https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMD/ officially launched its Helios rackscale system, with CEO Lisa Su announcing that the AI platform is in full production during the company's Advancing AI event in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday. The server cabinet combines 72 AMD Instinct MI455X graphics processing units GPUs , as well as the company's Epyc central processing units CPUs into a rack that is designed to compete directly with Nvidia's NVDA https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVDA/ Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin-powered NVL72 rackscale systems. Nvidia's offering also has 72 GPUs. AMD stock slipped more than 2% throughout Su's keynote. During her keynote address, Su said that the MI455X is the most powerful GPU in the industry, a direct shot at Nvidia, the current industry leader. According to Su, the Helios rack provides 15% better compute performance than Vera Rubin and offers 50% more high-bandwidth memory capacity. Helios, she added, also provides 30% more tokens per dollar than Nvidia's servers. And just as Nvidia teamed with AI inferencing chip designer Groq, integrating the company's Groq 3 processor into its data center offerings, AMD says it has made a deal with Cerebras CBRS https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CBRS/ to bring that company's for improved inferencing speeds. AMD is working to steal AI data center market share from Nvidia, which is estimated to control upwards of 80% to 90% of the space, and Helios gives it its best chance yet. In addition to Helios, AMD highlighted its Epyc 9006 series CPUs for data centers. Su noted that the chip line provides 20% higher per core performance than Nvidia's Vera CPU, adding that the 9006 series is the best server CPU lineup in the industry. AMD says that when taking into account its rack systems, PC business, and other processing products, it now anticipates its total addressable market will hit $2 trillion in 2030. Nvidia took an early lead in the space thanks to its prior investments in using GPUs to power AI applications. Now that AMD has its Helios rack, however, it has seemingly caught up to its long-time competitor. AMD's stock price growth has also outpaced Nvidia's over the last year. Shares of AMD have risen 222% throughout the last 12 months, while Nvidia shares rose 117%. Still, AMD's shares lagged Nvidia for years, as the Jensen Huang-led chip giant quickly became a household name, and have only begun to truly take off this year. Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on X at @DanielHowley . Click here for the latest technology news that will impact the stock market . Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance