ROCm, SoC ’em Robots: Reflections from AMD Advancing AI 2025

By David Sapoznikow, VP, Technology at Material

There’s an old game called, “Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots.” Two players each control a plastic robot and throw haymakers until one knocks the other’s head off. We are now in the middle of a similar but more consequential competition in the squared circle of AI. This bout is impactful for all of us because it can define who gets to explain what AI is, why it matters and how best to apply it towards our business and personal lives. That’s a sizable belt to wear for a major technological inflection. AMD’s recent “Advancing AI” developer event and product launch was their turn to slug away at NVIDIA. They did not pull punches.

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

In one corner, weighing in at $150B dollars in revenue and growing, current champion NVIDIA has massive size and reach advantages: an end-to-end hardware/software stack, the CUDA-based developer community and the influence to set industry direction towards a GPU-first, AI world. They are driven by the charismatic visionary and global AI evangelist, Jensen Huang. Businesses harness the power of NVIDIA’s innovative AI technologies to bring new efficiencies to their organization. Consumers benefit directly and indirectly every day. While NVIDIA has reached both businesses and technologists, their recent messaging leans heavily on AI jargon centered on tokens, flywheels, factories, foundries and NIMs.

A Prepared Challenger Jabs at the Champ

The challenger, AMD, flourishes in the underdog role: first relative to Intel and more recently with NVIDIA. They succeed by directly challenging their competitor’s strengths. AMD is aggressively positioning itself as the more customer-focused, inclusive, AI alternative to the NVIDIA juggernaut. Charismatic and visionary CEO Lisa Su has increased AMD’s reach by promoting accessible AI technologies and use cases. They attack NVIDIA’s strengths, such as the industry-leading hardware/software stack, through their own strategy and tactical messaging:

If judges were scoring this fight, AMD would be winning points on customer inclusion, accessible communication and easily understood use cases.

Exposing a Potential Weak Spot

AMD was aggressive at its event on issues of trust and open ecosystems. Execs and partners pushed messages like, “Innovation truly takes off when things are open” and “The future of AI is not closed — open, collaborative and for everyone.”  AMD’s reliably pugnacious Forrest Norrod stated, “We utterly reject the notion that one company could have a monopoly on AI or AI innovation… history shows the most vibrant ecosystems are open.” That kind of positioning can matter, especially with customers that prioritize flexibility and are sensitive to vendor lock-in.

The Champ Stands Firm

The hot topic of the day remains AI agents, and Lisa Su contextualized their impact for technologists and their business-focused decision makers. She explained that agentic AI, “Represents a new class of user — always on, always looking at data, apps, systems… this effectively adds the equivalent of billions of virtual users to global PC infrastructure and requires the combination of GPUs and CPUs.” No tokens needed for her explanation: AMD provides the right technologies for an evolving workforce. Then again, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang has navigated the pre-agentic landscape to his company’s undisputed leadership. NVIDIA’s has added CPUs to their stack and has moved perceptions beyond training AI to also providing inference for it. There is a surplus of NVIDIA-powered, real-world AI use cases to be found. This nimble, fierce champion lands body blows to all competitors on a daily basis.

Decision

This fight is unlikely to end with a knockout on either side. AMD and NVIDIA will both thrive due to the growing market demand and since their offerings do not fully overlap. In addition, a crowd of competitors loom on the horizon including Qualcomm, CSPs and startups. This prizefight will only increase in complexity and likely morph into a WWE-style Battle Royale.

Customers are the big winners in the AMD-Nvidia donnybrook. We benefit from transformative new AI capabilities. We also receive clearer communications regarding benefits, use cases and reassurance that AI is a collaborative entity. The advantage goes to the fighter with the best (customer) reach.