AMD acquires ZT Systems to enhance AI infrastructure
AMD has announced the completion of its acquisition of ZT Systems, a company known for its AI and cloud computing infrastructure expertise.
ZT Systems has been recognised for its work with the world's largest hyperscalers, and its capabilities in rack-scale and cloud-optimised design are set to bolster AMD's portfolio for enterprise and hyperscale AI customers. This acquisition aligns with AMD's objective to strengthen its position in the growing data centre AI accelerator market, which is projected to reach USD $500 billion by 2028.
The acquisition aims to fulfil AMD's strategic goals in three key areas: expanding market reach, accelerating AI deployment, and harnessing ZT Systems' design expertise. By integrating ZT's design and customer enablement expertise, AMD hopes to reduce end-to-end deployment times, providing a competitive edge for its customers in the AI sector.
Forrest Norrod, Executive Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Data Center Solutions Business Unit, commented on the significance of the acquisition, stating, "With the rapid pace of innovation in AI, reducing the end-to-end design and deployment time of cluster-level data centre AI systems will be a significant competitive advantage for our customers. Acquiring ZT Systems is a significant milestone in our AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that are optimised for our customers' unique environment, ready-to-deploy at scale, and based on our open ecosystem approach that combines open-source software, industry standard networking technologies and now ZT Systems' leadership systems design and customer enablement expertise."
Zhang Frank, the former Founder and CEO of ZT Systems, has joined AMD as Senior Vice President of ZT Manufacturing, a role in which he will assist in the divestiture of ZT Systems' manufacturing business. Doug Huang, former President of ZT Systems, now serves as Senior Vice President of Data Center Platform Engineering at AMD. Huang is tasked with leading design and customer enablement teams, contributing to faster time-to-market for data centre AI solutions.
These structural changes are expected to contribute to AMD's broader goals, including the anticipated acquisition accretion on a non-GAAP basis by the end of 2025. AMD stated that its world-class design teams would be integrated into its Data Center Solutions business unit, which Forrest Norrod leads. The company is in discussions with several potential strategic partners regarding the future purchase of ZT Systems' data centre infrastructure manufacturing business.
With these moves, AMD aims to offer extensive choice and speed to market for its customers, enabling them to invest and differentiate in the AI domain according to their strategic needs. "We welcome Frank Zhang, Doug Huang and the talented ZT Systems team to AMD, where together we will offer customers both choice and speed to market, allowing them to invest in key areas where they choose to differentiate their AI offerings," Norrod added.
