Watch out Nvidia — AMD takes big step toward data center supremacy with billion-dollar deal with ZT Systems
AMD has announced The company is acquiring AI infrastructure provider ZT Systems in a deal worth $4.9 billion in cash and stock, a major milestone in the chipmaker’s plan to challenge Nvidia in the AI data center market.
The company says the deal will accelerate the deployment of its AI solutions and strengthen its position in the growing AI accelerator market, which it predicts will be worth $400 billion by 2027.
The acquisition of ZT Systems also gives AMD more than a thousand design engineers to increase scale.
AMD uses ZT Systems to get closer to Nvidia
AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su emphasized the strategic importance of the deal, noting that it allows the company to integrate its AI hardware, including the Instinct line of AI accelerators and EPYC CPUs, with ZT Systems’ system design expertise.
The goal, she says, is to “deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with [AMD’s] ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners.”
ZT Systems has been a major player in building custom AI infrastructure for global tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta and Amazon in recent years. The company also has an existing partnership with Nvidia, which is expected to continue.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The transaction marks the latest in a series of AI-focused investments, including more than $1 billion to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and strengthen the company’s AI software capabilities over the past year.
The company also acquired Finnish AI startup Silo AI last month for $665 million.
After a month of declines, AMD stock is back on the rise, up 4.5% following the ZT Systems announcement. While AMD’s market cap of $251.31 billion is well above Intel’s $92.01 billion, it still lags behind Nvidia, currently the world’s second most valuable company with a market cap of $3.197 trillion.
Earlier this year, AMD also acquired Europe’s largest private AI lab, Silo AI, in a $700 million deal. This is a strategic expansion of the AI tools ecosystem, alongside the acquisitions of Mipsology and Nod.ai.
