AMD Acquires Open-Source AI Software Firm Nod.ai to Accelerate AI Hardware Optimization
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AMD has announced plans to acquire Nod.ai, a startup specializing in optimizing artificial intelligence software for high-performance hardware.
The acquisition of Nod.ai, which was founded just three years ago, indicates AMD's serious intent to secure a position in the rapidly growing AI chip market. Industry analysts predict this market will reach $383.7 billion by 2032. However, the acquisition amount was not disclosed.
This move highlights AMD's growth strategy in the AI field: building an open software ecosystem to simplify customer adoption through developer tools, code libraries, and models. The acquisition is another step in AMD's ongoing expansion into the fast-growing AI industry.
Nod.ai provides key enabling technologies for future AI systems, employing advanced compiler methods rather than traditional manual kernels. The company has created the SHARK machine learning distribution, built on LLVM, MLIR, OpenXLA's IREE, and Nod.ai's tuning. Nod.ai's software accelerates AI model deployment across AMD's various platforms, including Instinct data center accelerators, Ryzen AI processors, EPYC processors, Versal SoCs, and Radeon GPUs.
AMD Senior Vice President Vamsi Boppana stated that this acquisition is expected to significantly enhance AMD's ability to provide open software for AI customers, enabling them to easily deploy high-performance AI models optimized for AMD hardware.
In recent years, AMD has heavily invested in various AI technologies such as CDNA, XDNA, RDNA, and Zen architectures, competing with NVIDIA and Intel in the rapidly growing AI market. According to industry reports, the global AI market is projected to reach approximately $594 billion by 2032.
Beyond technology, AMD also aims to leverage Nod.ai's engineering talent to enhance its reputation among open-source developers. Nod.ai is a contributor to several widely used AI software libraries by researchers, including SHARK and Torch-MLIR.