To refocus on artificial intelligence, AMD is shedding around 1,000 employees.
Intel's financial situation is the subject of much concern in the tech world. The American company has announced the layoff of over 15,000 employees worldwide. It's a plan the likes of which the group has never organized since it was founded in 1968. There's obviously no question of comparing Intel's announcements with those of its long-standing rival, but AMD's confirmation of a redundancy plan nevertheless came as a surprise to many observers and, even more so, to those directly concerned.
Indeed, although the plan announced by AMD concerns "only" 4% of its workforce worldwide (compared with over 12% at Intel), it still represents the eviction of 1,000 employees, and this at a time when the group's top executives are full of praise for their operations, with growth in all its business sectors... or almost. Indeed, while the company's overall revenues rose by 17% over the past quarter, profits were up 34% over the same period. The gaming sector is not doing so well. AMD has announced a 69% drop in revenues for the third quarter of its fiscal year.
This is all the more embarrassing for AMD as gaming is linked to graphics gas pedals, which are on the rise - at least at NVIDIA - for their computing power in artificial intelligence processing. It is precisely with this in mind that AMD is announcing the layoff of 1,000 people. The Group states that " these layoffs underscore our commitment to aligning our resources with our greatest growth opportunities ". In other words, rather than focusing on sectors with low profitability, AMD intends to compete with NVIDIA in artificial intelligence. It's a complex proposition, given the GeForce developer's apparent head start.
