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(Photo source: Photo taken by Titanium Media App editor)

Just over two years after acquiring Xilinx, "Mama Su" started buying again.

At 18:00 on August 19th, Beijing time,American chip giant AMD announced that it will acquire ZT Systems, the world's largest hyperscale computing company and leading AI infrastructure system provider, in a cash and stock transaction. The transaction value is as high as US$4.9 billion (approximately RMB 35.014 billion), which will significantly expand AMD's data center AI system business.

AMD said the $4.9 billion includes contingent payments of up to $400 million based on certain milestones after the transaction is completed. The company emphasized that ZT Systems has extensive experience in designing and optimizing cloud computing solutions, and the acquisition will also help cloud and enterprise customers significantly accelerate the large-scale deployment of AI infrastructure powered by AMD, enabling AMD to provide leading AI training and reasoning solutions based on cross-chip, software and system innovations. AMD expects the transaction to be accretive on a non-GAAP revenue basis by the end of 2025.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by AMD's board of directors and is currently expected to be completed in the first half of 2025, subject to certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Upon completion of the acquisition, ZT Systems will become part of AMD's Data Center Solutions business group. AMD will retain the company's design and customer teams and consider selling the manufacturing division.

“The acquisition of ZT Systems is the next important step in our long-term AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inference solutions that can be rapidly deployed at scale in the cloud and across enterprise customers,” said Dr. Lisa Su, Chairman and CEO of AMD. “ZT brings world-class system design and rack-scale solution expertise that will significantly enhance our data center AI systems and customer support capabilities. This acquisition also builds on our investments to accelerate our AI hardware and software roadmaps. Combining our high-performance Instinct AI accelerator, EPYC CPU and networking portfolio with ZT Systems’ industry-leading data center systems expertise will enable AMD to deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale through our ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners.”

After the news was announced, AMD's US stocks surged, with a pre-market increase of more than 2%, after previously falling nearly 1%.

It is reported that,Headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, USA, ZT Systems has more than 15 years of experience in designing and deploying data center AI computing and storage infrastructure for the world's largest cloud companies. ZT Systems' design, integration, manufacturing and deployment capabilities make it one of the leading providers of AI training and inference infrastructure.

It is worth noting that NVIDIA and OpenAI have always been customers of ZT Systems. In June this year, ZT Systems announced the launch of the ACX200 solution using the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell super chip for next-generation accelerated computing.

Therefore, given the relationship between Nvidia and AMD, this means that after AMD completes the acquisition of ZT Systems, its cooperation with Nvidia may cease.

Upon completion of the transaction, ZT Systems will join AMD's Data Center Solutions business group. ZT CEO Frank Zhang will lead the manufacturing business, and ZT Systems President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer support teams, both reporting to AMD Executive Vice President and General Manager Forrest Norrod. AMD will seek a strategic partner to acquire ZT Systems' industry-leading U.S. data center infrastructure manufacturing business.

“We are excited to join AMD and play a larger role in designing the AI ​​infrastructure that will define the future of computing,” said Frank Zhang, CEO of ZT Systems. “For nearly 30 years, we have grown our business to become a leading provider of critical compute and storage infrastructure to the world’s largest cloud companies. AMD shares our vision for our technology and employees to play a vital role in designing and building the compute infrastructure that powers the world’s largest data centers.”

In fact, in February 2022, AMD announced the completion of its acquisition of FPGA giant Xilinx in an all-stock transaction, with a transaction value of US$49.8 billion (approximately RMB 316.5 billion). After the acquisition is completed, AMD CEO Lisa Su will continue to serve as the company's CEO, and Xilinx President and CEO Victor Peng will join AMD as president of the newly established Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (AECG). However, it is expected that Victor Peng will retire from AMD by August 30.

Now, less than three years after acquiring Xilinx, AMD has once again made a move to acquire a leader in the industry chain and increase its investment in the AI ​​computing power track.

AMD emphasized that in the past 12 months, in addition to increasing organic R&D activities, AMD has invested more than $1 billion to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and enhance the company's AI software capabilities.

(This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author: Lin Zhijia, editor: Hu Runfeng)