The race for AI dominance is heating up, and AMD is throwing its hat into the ring with a powerful new contender. On Thursday, the chip giant unveiled its next-generation Instinct MI350 chip, set to compete directly with Nvidia’s anticipated Blackwell system. This new chip, built on AMD’s CDNA 4 architecture, is expected to ship in the second half of 2025 and boasts some impressive features.
AMD claims the MI350 series accelerators will deliver up to 35 times better inference performance compared to their CDNA 3-based predecessors. This dramatic improvement is a direct challenge to Nvidia, which has long held a dominant position in the AI chip market. But AMD isn’t just focusing on performance. The MI350 series also emphasizes memory capacity, offering up to 288GB of HBM3E memory per accelerator, potentially giving it an edge in handling complex AI tasks.
AMD CEO Lisa Su has set an ambitious vision for the company: to become the ‘end-to-end AI leader’ within the next decade. She acknowledges the challenge ahead, stating, “You have to be extremely ambitious. This is the beginning, not the end of the AI race.” While AMD currently trails Nvidia in AI chip sales, it has emerged as a formidable competitor. The company projects the total addressable market for AI chips to reach a staggering $400 billion by 2027, highlighting the immense potential of this rapidly growing sector.
Meanwhile, Nvidia is also making strides with its Blackwell GPU platform, confirming that it’s in full production and experiencing “insane” demand. Microsoft recently became the first cloud provider to offer the platform’s GB200 chips to its clients, underscoring its growing influence. Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show 2025, where the company is expected to unveil updates on its next-generation GPUs, including the RTX 50 series, built on the Blackwell architecture.
The competition between AMD and Nvidia is set to intensify as both companies strive for dominance in the rapidly evolving AI chip market. With ambitious goals and cutting-edge technology, the race for AI supremacy is just getting started.
